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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE CHURCH: 

HER MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 



THE CHURCH: 

HER MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 



LECTURES 

Delivered on the L. P. Stone Foundation at Princeton 
Theological Seminary in 1890. 




HENRY J. VAN DYKE, D.D. 

PASTOR OF THE SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BROOKLYN. 




NEW YORK: 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH AND COMPANY, 

38 West Twenty-Third Street. 



4«° 



The Library 
of Gong k ess 



Copyright, 1890, 
By Anson D. F. Randolph and Company. 



John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



TO 

MY TWO SONS, 

WHO WERE THE HOPE OF MY EARLY MANHOOD, 
AND ARE THE JOY AND CROWN OF MY LATER YEARS, 

IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 



PREFACE. 



THE absorbing duties of the pastoral office in a great 
city may be regarded as both a hindrance and a 
help to the discussion of the subjects involved in these 
Lectures. They are a hindrance because they leave so 
little time and strength for patient and thorough, inves- 
tigation beyond the* limits of ordinary preaching ; and 
yet they are a help, because they constantly present in 
a concrete and practical form the questions which go .to 
the roots of all theories and controversies concerning the 
Church, the Ministry, and the Sacraments. Every man 
who claims to be a minister of Christ and a steward of 
the mysteries of God must often ask himself whether 
his claim is well founder' and for his own peace of 
mind must find some solution of the problems which 
this question involves. And so also in the administra- 
tion of the sacraments, he ftmst often ask and answer 
the inquiry what these holy ordinances mean, and to 
whom they are to be dispensed. If these Lectures 
show that their Author has not been exempt from the 
hindrances referred to, he trusts that their defects, of 
which he is painfully conscious, will find some compen- 
sation in the help which comes from the practical ex- 
perience of a long pastoral life, and from the earnest 
desire to settle the questions which underlie such a life- 
work according to the Word of God. 



Vlll PREFACE. 

The Author is well aware that the views here ex- 
pressed differ in some respects from the prevailing prac- 
tice and opinions in the Presbyterian Church. They 
are likely to provoke criticism in two directions. His 
views of the Divine origin and authority of the visible 
Church and its ministry, and of the obligation and 
efficacy of the sacraments, will be regarded by many 
as High-church. The name is of little importance. 
The Author believes that these views are scriptural; 
and he feels sure that they are in full accord with the 
teaching of the Westminster Confession of Faith. 

On the other hand, the breadth and comprehensive- 
ness of his views as to the constitution of the visible 
Church, and his readiness to subordinate differences in 
doctrine, church government, and forms of worship to 
the desire for greater unity among Christians, will be 
criticised and rejected as Broad-churchism by those who 
hold to what is called jure divino Presbyterianism. Here 
again the name is of little importance. The Author has 
long felt that the present attitude of Christian denomin- 
ations is unscriptural, and hurtful to the cause of Christ, 
and especially that the relations of the Episcopal and 
Presbyterian churches are too much controlled on both 
sides by misunderstandings, unreasonable prejudices, and 
the bitter memories of past controversies which ought 
to be forgiven and forgotten. A careful study of the 
creeds of Christendom, and especially a comparison of 
the standards of the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches, 
brings the full conviction that the agreements are un- 
speakably greater than the differences, and that it is 
the high duty of every one who is loyal to Christ to 
magnify the one and minimise the other. I claim to be 
a minister, not only of the Presbyterian Church, but of 
the one visible Church of Christ ; and the larger relation 



PREFACE. ix 

dominates and moulds my thoughts and desires. I long 
for the time when all the ministers and churches of 
Christ shall cease their rivalries and their witness-bear- 
ing against each other and unite in the larger and more 
important work of testifying the grace of God in all the 
world to every creature, and in co-operation for the 
triumphant establishment of Christ's kingdom in all 
the earth. 

How this consummation is to be reached, I do not 
undertake to dictate or to prophesy ; but sure I am 
that the wish, if it shall attain to the height and depth 
and breadth which the Scriptures warrant and enjoin, 
will be father not only to the thought, but also to the 
deed. The obstacles in the way are but wood, hay, and 
stubble, when compared with the one Foundation on 
which we all build, and in whose praise our hearts and 
tongues unite. If in the more controversial parts of 
these Lectures anything shall be found inconsistent in 
fact or in spirit with these views, it will be a cause 
of sincere regret. 

It may be proper, though hardly necessary, to add, 
that while these Lectures were delivered in the Theo- 
logical Seminary at Princeton, N". J., by invitation of 
its Faculty, no one but their Author is in any way 
responsible for them. 

Henry J. Van Dyke. 

Brooklyn, 

May 27, 1890. 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE PAGE 

I. The Holy Catholic Church . , . . . . . 1 

II. The Kingdom of Christ ........ 24 

III. The Unity of the Visible Church . . . . 48 

IV. The Church Membership of Infants ... 74 
V. Ordination to the Ministry . . . . . . 115 

VI. The Lord's Supper 162 

VII. The Administration of the Sacraments . . 192 

Appendix 223 

Index 259 



THE MINISTRY 



SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH. 



LECTURE I. 

THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 

GOD'S thoughts are so far above our thoughts that 
they cannot be at once and completely expressed 
in man's words. The diffuseness and variety of the 
Scriptures, and the progressive development of its doc- 
trines, are necessary conditions of a verbal revelation. 
Divine inspiration redeems human words from their 
common use, breathes into them a new life, and sanc- 
tifies them to higher ends, from which we may not drag 
them down by insisting upon their radical as their true 
meaning. The English word " church " may be derived 
from KvpLov olkos ; but it does not follow that what we 
understand by the "House of God" comprehends all the 
Divine idea of the Church. 

ISTor do we get much light from the etymology of the 
words in the original Scriptures translated " church " in 
our English version. The Tcahal of the Old Testament 
and the ecclesia of the New literally signify an "assembly." 
Hence there are some who insist that we ought to dis- 
abuse our minds of all later accretions to their meaning, 



2 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

and regard the Church simply as an assembly of Chris- 
tians. But why should this dismantling process stop at 
a Christian assembly ? Why not strip the words bare 
to their original meaning ? The kalial of the Old Tes- 
tament is applied to the army of Pharaoh and to the 
company of Korah, 1 as well as to the congregation of 
Israel. And so also in the New Testament the Greek 
word ecclesia is apj)lied to a meeting of citizens called 
by civil authority, and even to a mob like that which 
was gathered in the theatre at Ephesus. 2 The logical 
conclusion of the etymological argument is that any and 
every assembly of people is a church. 

Neither is the Divine idea of the Church completely 
defined when you add to a Christian assembly the ele- 
ment of a Divine call. It is true that the etymology of 
ecclesia, and of its Hebrew equivalent, suggests, and the 
connection in which they are used generally conveys, 
the notion of an assembly constituted by authority and 
selection. It is also true that the kXtjtoC, those who 
are effectually called 'of God, will be the sole constitu- 
ents of the Church in its ultimate glory, and that God 
knows infallibly who they will be. 

But it does not follow from this that the Church con- 
sists only of those who love God and are the called 
according to His purpose. It is frequently spoken of in 
Scripture as a mixed assembly, including not only real, 
but also nominal, Christians. And this mixed society 
is the true Church ; because its existence is a reality, 
its organization is a fact, its duty and destiny are the 
fulfilment of a Divine purpose. 3 

1 Numbers xvi. 16 ; Ezek. xvii. 17. 

2 The assembly (rj eKickrjo-ia) was confused. — Acts xix. 32. 

3 God hath, ever had and ever shall have some church visible 
upon earth ; not only because He had thousands which never bowed 



THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 3 

The Church is never spoken of in Scripture as an 
ideal thing. It is always a concrete reality, — a living 
organism. It is composed of individuals; but their 
composition into the Church limits their individuality 
and knits them together in one body. 1 

The truth is, that no one definition ever has been or 
ever can be constructed to cover all the facts and reve- 
lations recorded in Scripture concerning the Church. 
The best analysis of the complex idea that ever has 
been made is presented in the twenty-fifth chapter of 
the Westminster Confession. First, the Church con- 
sists of all those who have been or ever will be saved 
through Christ, out of whom there is no salvation. All 
these are knit together in God's apprehension, by the 
purpose of His grace in regard to them, by their personal 
relationship to Christ, and by their common destiny. 
This is the Holy Catholic Church invisible. 

Secondly, the Church consists of all those throughout 
the world who at any particular period profess the true 
religion, together with their children. This is the visi- 
ble Church, which is also Catholic under the Gospel, not 

the knee to Baal, but even they whose knees were bowed to Baal 
were also of the visible church of God. — Hooker : Ecc. Pol., book 
iii. chap. i. 8. 

1 There are precepts in the New Testament addressed, not to be- 
lievers separately, but to believers associated and joined together in a 
corporate capacity. There are duties enjoined upon the whole soci- 
ety, and not upon the separate members composing it. There are 
powers bestowed upon the community which cannot be exercised by 
its separate members, and promises which cannot be fulfilled in their 
individual experience. There is a system of offices and ordinances 
described in Scripture as belonging to the Church, which can be 
appropriated only by a body whose many members are subordinated 
and compacted together in a living organism. — Bannehman : 
Church of Christ, i. 2. 



4 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

being confined to one nation, as it was before under the 
law. 

Thirdly, the Church consists of "particular churches;" 
that is to say, of local communities of Christians asso- 
ciated and organized for worship, instruction, and holy 
living. That such local associations are recognized in 
Scripture as "churches," is too obvious to require proof; 
and we expect to make it equally plain that the recog- 
nition of these "particular churches" is entirely con- 
sistent with the doctrine that there is only one Church. 
This threefold division may easily be reduced to two, 
because all local or particular churches are only parts 
of the one Catholic visible Church, and, so far as their 
members are true Christians, parts also of the one Cath- 
olic Church invisible. This idea is often expressed by 
calling them " branches " of the Church, — a mode of 
speech which has been sarcastically termed "the vege- 
table theory." But the sarcasm is more witty than wise ; 
for Christ Himself likened the kingdom of heaven, 
which is His Church, to a small seed growing into a 
great tree, in whose branches the birds of the air lodge. 
The comparison of the Church to a tree is, of course, 
figurative ; but how profound and true to fact is the 
figure ! It expresses not only the idea that the visible 
Church is a living organism, growing upon a common 
root, sustained and expanded by common influences, 
but that every part of it is a representative and minia- 
ture of the whole. The branch is not only connected 
with the tree, but is a small tree in itself, for the 
typical form of the tree is traceable in every limb and 
in every leaf; so that this "vegetable theory" is not 
only conformable to Scripture, but exquisitely beautiful 
in its conformity to nature. This point will come up 
again for consideration. It is referred to now only to 



THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 5 

show that the recognition of local and particular asso- 
ciations of Christians as true churches does not contra- 
dict the doctrine of the one Holy Catholic Church. 1 

It should be further observed that the distinction 
between the visible and the invisible Church is formal 
rather than real. 2 They are not two separate churches, 
but one church under two distinct characters ; the invisi- 
ble Church being spiritually united to Christ, the visible 
being externally united to Him for the sake of the 
other. 3 

I. The Catholic, or Universal, Church, which is in- 
visible, consists of the whole number of the elect that 
have been, are, or shall be gathered into one under 
Christ, the Head thereof. It is the comprehensive title 

1 The Congregational, or Independent, theory denies the existence 
of the visible Church regarded as one body. We find this theory 
where we would least expect it, — in Episcopal writers. Shrinking 
back from the extreme that there is no invisible Church, they go to 
the opposite extreme, — " dum vitia vitant, in contraria currant." 
Thus Dr. Litton says : " There are only two really distinct senses 
which the word [church] bears in Scripture, according as it is used 
to signify either one or more Christian societies, or the Church 
which is described as the Body or the Bride of Christ. . . . Between 
a local church or a collection of such churches there is no vital or- 
ganic connection, such as exists between the members of the human 
body and the head, or between the branches of the tree and the tree 
itself." (Church of Christ, pp. 218, 223.) This is altogether too 
Low Church for us. Some Presbyterians may adopt it, but it is not 
the doctrine of our standards nor of the Reformers. The Body and 
Bride of Christ is both an invisible and a visible organization. 

2 Christ hath not two churches, one visible and the other invisi- 
ble, but one Church, which in one aspect is visible, and in another 
aspect invisible. — Walker : Scottish Theology and Theologians, 
p. 123. 

3 Bannerman, Church of Christ, i. 9. See also Macpherson, On 
Confession of Faith, p. 143 ; and Calvin on Holy Catholic Church, 
Institutes, book iv. chap. i. 7. 



b THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

of all those whom the Father has given to the Son 
(John xvii. 2) ; of all those who shall ever believe on 
Him (John xvii. 20) ; of all the sheep who will ever 
hear His voice and follow Him ; to whom He will cnve 
eternal life, and whom He will bring from many folds 
into one flock under one Shepherd (John x. 16-28). In 
other words, the Church under this aspect includes the 
ichoU results of the work of redemption. No one can 
deny that this body of the redeemed is in fact invisible 
to us, and that it will continue to be so until Christ 
comes again, "to be glorified in His saints and to be 
admired in all them that believe" (2 Thess. i. 10). 
Nor can any one who believes in " the determinate 
counsel and foreknowledge of God" deny that the 
whole number of the redeemed is and always has been 
distinctly present to the Eye that sees all things at one 
view. Neither again can it be denied that this body 
of the redeemed is repeatedly designated in the Scrip- 
ture as the Church. Many passages cited in support of 
this position are disputed, and we are free to confess that 
Protestant zeal has pushed its quotations on this point 
too far; but there are other passages which admit of 
no dispute. Where has there ever been, and how can 
there possibly be, on earth a visible company of believ- 
ers commensurate with the Church which is Christ's 
Body, "the fulness of Him that filleth all in all"? 
(Eph. i. 23.) The Body of Christ is, indeed, frequently 
used as a descriptive title of the visible Church, in- 
cluding both real and nominal professors of His name 
(Eph. iv. 4-12 ; 1 Cor. xii. 12-25). But in such pas- 
sages as the one just quoted, where the Body of Christ 
is said to be " the fulness of Him that filleth all in all," 
— and this is further explained by the prediction of 
that " peace through the blood of His cross " in which 



THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 7 

He will " reconcile all things unto Himself, whether they 
be things in earth or things in heaven" (Col. i. 20), — 
the reference manifestly is to the comprehensive and 
everlasting results of redemption. 

Where now, but in God's all-seeing vision, is "the 
general assembly and church of the first-born which 
are written in heaven " (Heb. xii. 23) ? To these dim 
eyes, which see only through a glass darkly, it is invis- 
ible ; and never can we behold it until we come to the 
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, — and 
not then, in its completeness, until all those that " are 
written in heaven " are gathered in from every nation 
and kindred and tongue. The denial that the Church, 
in the Scripture use of the name, reaches far beyond 
any earthly and visible organization, compels those who 
make it to contradict themselves, and leads to unwar- 
ranted limitations of the grace of God. Dr. Goulburn, 
one of the ablest and most candid writers on that side 
of the question, may be taken as a representative of all. 
He says, "The 'invisible Church' is erroneous and 
unscriptural phraseology. The Church of Holy Scrip- 
ture, whether under the old or new dispensation, is 
always a visible body, ivhich may be known and seen, 
established in the earth to bear testimony to God's 
truth, and intrusted with the administration of His 
word and ordinances." x 

What we object to in this statement is not its rec- 
ognition of the Church as a Divine institution in the 
world, nor its description of the ends which that Divine 
institution is designed and fitted to secure. We hold 
as strenuously as any Eoman Catholic or Anglican 
Churchman that "our Lord Jesus Christ came not sim- 
ply to teach certain religious doctrines, but to found a 
1 Goulburn's Holy Catholic Churcli, p. 2. 



8 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

society, and that He did what He came to do." 2 We 
also believe that "a church is not an aggregation of 
believers, but a body or society of believers ; " and that 
" a body is not a heap of members, but a system of mem- 
bers knit together into one organization, and pervaded 
by one life." 2 And we believe further that this Divine 
institution under the New Testament is the enlarged 
continuance of "the church in the wilderness" (Acts 
vii. 38), the one superseding the other as the full-blown 
day swallows up and abolishes the morning twilight. 
But we object to the assertion that the Church of God 
is always and only a visible society, as contrary alike to 
Scripture and to facts which all Christians admit. Dr. 
Goulburn himself is compelled to modify, and virtually 
to take back, this assertion, when he says that " the 
Church, as a visible body called out of the world, must 
not be confounded with the smaller invisible body con- 
tained within it of the elect people of God!' 3 

Here then is the admission that the elect people of 
God are a body, " not a heap of members, but a system 
knit together into one organization, and pervaded by 
one life." It is this body which we call the Invisible 
Church. It is not merely the name for which we con- 
tend, important as that is to the consistent interpreta- 
tion of Scripture, but we protest against the theory 
which limits the facts represented by that name, makes 
the body of God's elect smaller than the body of the vis- 
ible Church, and the number of those who are " written 
in heaven " less than the names upon the Church rolls 
on earth. The opposite of this is true. The number of 
those who will be saved is unspeakably greater than the 
number of those who profess to be Christians. And 

1 Goulburn's Holy Catholic Church, p. 7. 

2 Ibid., p. 9. 3 Ibid., p. 27. 



THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 9 

this is perfectly consistent with the teaching of our Con- 
fession, that " out of the visible Church there is no ordi- 
nary possibility of salvation." x No ordinary possibility. 
We are to work out our own salvation, and to labor for 
the salvation of others in the use of Divinely appointed 
means, and in connection with Divinely established in- 
stitutions. For " to the Catholic visible Church Christ 
has given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God, 
for the gathering and perfecting of the saints in this life 
to the end of the world, and doth by His own presence 
and spirit according to His promise make them effectual 
thereto." 2 But the visible Church and its Divine ordi- 
nances are not their own end, they are only means to a 
higher end. They are means which ice are bound to use, 
and by which our agency is limited. But God is not 
bound or limited by them. "He worketh when and 
where and how He pleaseth." 3 What the extraordinary 
possibilities of salvation are, and what will be their pre- 
cise results, it is not for us to determine. We can only 
express the conviction that no human soul will be lost 
whom it is possible for God to save, consistently with 
His own attributes, with the freedom of the human will, 
and with the best interests of the intelligent universe. 
" No man is lost for the want of an atonement, or be- 
cause there is any other barrier in the way of his salva- 
tion than his own most free and wicked will." 4 The 
Holy Catholic Church invisible was in the beginning, is 
now, and ever shall be greater than any visible society 
on earth. We cannot agree with Edwards that " they 
who are visibly or seemingly of the one only Church of 
Christ are many more than they who are really of His 

1 Westminster Confession, ch. xxv. 2. 

2 Ibid., 3. 8 Ibid., ch. x. 3. 
4 A. A. Hodge's Outlines of Theology, p. 420. 



10 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

Church, and so the visible or seeming church is of larger 
extent than the real." 1 There are not few that be saved. 
Only the mind of a Pharisee could ask the question or 
give it an affirmative answer. 

The assembly of the redeemed, as seen by John in 
the Apocalypse, is " a great multitude, which no man 
could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, 
and tongues " (Eev. vii. 9). It is no new discovery of 
modern thought, but the legitimate outgrowth of the 
theology of the Eeformation, as opposed to the narrow 
dogmatism of the Church of Eome, that the great ma- 
jority of the human race will be saved through Christ. 
It was no advocate of a new theology, but Dr. Charles 
Hodge, who said : " We know from the Bible itself 
that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation 
he that feareth God is accepted of Him. No one 
doubts that it is in the power of God to call whom He 
pleases from among the heathen, and to reveal to them 
enough truth to secure their salvation." 2 It is in the 
works of the same eminent expounder of the Eeformed 
theology that we find the clearest and most Scriptural 
defence of the doctrine that all who die in infancy, bap- 
tized or un-baptized, are redeemed and saved through 
Christ. 3 This doctrine is intimately connected with our 
subject ; for if all who die in infancy are saved, they 
belong to the body of God's elect and to the Church of 
the First-born, which are written in heaven. " I tell 
you," says Dr. Alexander Hodge, " that the infinite ma- 
jority of the Spiritual Church of Jesus Christ came 
into existence outside of all organization. [He means, 
of course, all visible and earthly organization.] Through 

1 Qualifications for Full Communion Work, i. 96. 

2 Theology, iii. 476. 

8 Hodge's Theology, i. 27. 



THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 11 

all the ages, — from Japan, from China, from India, 
from Africa, from the isles of the sea, — multitudes, 
flocking like birds, have gone to heaven of this great 
company of redeemed infants of the Church of God." x 

The doctrine of the salvation of all dying infants is not 
a mere abstract theory, invading the secret things which 
belong to God. It is necessary to the consistent inter- 
pretation of Scripture and to the vindication of God's 
character as a righteous Judge and a loving Father. 
While it comes home to our dearest affections and 
hopes, and touches our tenderest sorrows with the 
finger of Christ, it magnifies the grace of God and sets 
the high mystery of Divine fore-ordination in its true 
light as a help and not a hindrance to the salvation of 
men. It throws a gleam of hope over all our efforts to 
extend the triumphs of the visible Church on earth. 
The visible is pervaded and enveloped by the invisible. 
Around and above the valley of conflict and the sacra- 
mental host, the mountains are full of horsemen and 
chariots of fire. The fruit of the travail of Christ's soul 
satisfies His infinite love. 

It is not our business either to define or to depend 
upon the extraordinary possibilities of salvation. Our 
business is to preach the Gospel to every creature. We 
may not hold out any hope which that Gospel does not 
clearly set before us. But at the same time it is not 
our prerogative, and it does not belong to the commis- 
sion of the visible Church, to shut the gates of mercy on 
mankind by excluding any from salvation which the 
Gospel does not expressly exclude. Christ has cosmic 
relations which, because they do not come within the 

1 A. A. Hodge's Popular Lectures. 

Tor a fuller discussion of the salvation of infants, see Appendix, 
Lect. I. (A). 



12 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

sphere of our agency and responsibility, are but occa- 
sionally hinted at in Scripture. But these hints are 
very precious. They are gleams of light from a glory 
that is now inaccessible and beyond our comprehension, 
but which we shall one day behold and inherit. Such 
passages as the following are rainbows on all the dark 
clouds of the future : " And I, if I be lifted up, will draw 
all men unto Me" (John xii. 32); "God is the Saviour of 
all men, specially of those that believe" (1 Tim. iv. 10); 
He " is not willing that any should perish, but that all 
should come to repentance " (2 Pet. iii. 9) ; " All things 
were created by Jesus Christ, in heaven and on earth, 
visible and invisible ; all things were created by Him 
and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him 
all things consist ; and He is the head of the body, the 
Church; for it pleased the Father that in Him should 
all fulness dwell; and having made peace through the 
blood of the cross, by Him to reconcile all things to 
Himself" (Col. i. 16-20); "That in the dispensation of 
the fulness of times He might gather together in one 
all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and 
which are on earth, even in Him " (Eph. i. 10). Such 
passages are not to be flung aside as though they had 
no meaning ; and while their dim transparency is not 
to be so interpreted as to contradict plainer declarations 
of Scripture, nor to include any whom the Gospel ex- 
cludes from its benefits, nor to deny the definite pur- 
pose of God in regard to those whom He has chosen in 
Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph. i. 4), 
they may and ought to be used to enlarge our concep- 
tion of the Divine purpose of redemption and of the 
Church, which is " the fulness of Him that filleth all 
in all." 

II. One extreme begets another. On both sides of 



THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 13 

every controversy men are apt to lean backwards. To 
the assertion that the Church spoken of in the Old and 
New Testament is " always a visible society," the ex- 
treme controversial response is that the Church, as such, 
is not a visible society at all. The argument by which 
this extreme position is defended may be summed up 
in the following propositions : (1) None but those who 
truly repent and believe are ever denominated kXtjtol 
(the called) ; and as the J/c/cXrio-ia consists of the kXtjtoI, 
the Church must consist of true believers. (2) No ex- 
ternal visible society, as such, is holy ; and therefore 
the Church of which the Scriptures speak is not a 
visible society, but the communion of saints. (3) The 
Church as the communion of saints is one ; as an ex- 
ternal society it is not one ; therefore the Church is a 
company of believers, and not an external society. 
(4) Unity of faith is one of the attributes of the true 
Church, which cannot be predicated of any external 
society calling itself the Church of God. 

To the first of these propositions, — that " the Church 
must consist of true believers," — it will be sufficient to 
answer that it begs the question under discussion, and 
contradicts a multitude of Scriptures, in which the 
Church is described as including both true and nominal 
believers. 

The assumption which underlies all the other state- 
ments is, that the attributes given in Scripture to the 
Church, regarded as the whole body of true believers, 
do not apply in any sense to the whole body oiprofessed 
believers. This assumption is contrary to the received 
maxim, that a mixed body may be designated by the 
attributes of one of its elements ; as in the case of the 
human and Divine person of Christ, and the person of 
man, consisting of both soul and body. 



14 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

Holiness is an attribute of all true believers; but 
every believer is also a sinner, — no believer on earth is 
perfectly holy. Does it follow, therefore, that there are 
no true believers in the world ? The same logic which 
proves that the Church, as such, is not a visible society, 
because the Church is holy, whereas no visible society 
is 'perfectly holy, is of equal force to prove that the 
Church is not " the communion of saints," because no 
saint on earth is perfectly holy. If the continuance 
of sin in believers individually, and consequently in 
the whole body of believers, does not preclude that 
body from being called "the holy Catholic Church," 
neither does the continuance of sinners among pro- 
fessed believers preclude the whole body of professed 
believers from being called the holy Catholic Church, 
nor from inheriting the promise of final and complete 
sanctification. 

When Paul wrote his epistles " to the church of God 
which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ 
Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place 
call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs 
and ours " (1 Cor. i. 2), he certainly addressed a visible 
society, to whom his letters could be read, and he cer- 
tainly did not intend to preclude from his appellation 
of the whole body the sinners whose unholiness he re- 
buked, and whom he hoped to reclaim from their 
backsliding. The whole nominally Christian commu- 
nion is addressed as "the church of God which is at 
Corinth," and this is broadened in its application so 
as to include professing Christians, in all ages and 
lands, by the comprehensive clause, " with all that in 
every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our 
Lord, both theirs and ours." If Paul had meant to 
discriminate, in the use of the word " church," between 



THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 15 

true and nominal believers, it would have been easy 
for him to do so. His comprehensive words do not 
need to be guarded by any limitations we can impose 
upon them. 

Following his example, we are permitted and bound 
to call the whole body of professed believers on earth 
"the Holy Catholic Church," because in the judg- 
ment of charity the great mass of those who call upon 
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ are accepted of him, 
and because, whatever may be the destiny of particular 
individuals in its membership, its destiny as a body is 
to be finally washed, sanctified, and glorified. Its holi- 
ness is not yet complete. Nevertheless, the process of 
its sanctification makes continual progress. As Calvin 
beautifully says, " the Lord is daily smoothing its wrin- 
kles and wiping away its spots." 1 

The same reasoning applies equally to the unity of 
faith which is another attribute of the true Church. 
There is just as much division and diversity of doctrinal 
opinion among true believers as there is among nominal 
Christians. Peter and Paul certainly belonged to the 
communion of saints; yet how they differed and dis- 
puted with each other ! If unity of faith is a mark of 
the true Church, and if that unity is destroyed by 
existing doctrinal differences, then there is no such 
thing as the Church of God, visible or invisible, outside 
of heaven. The truth is, unity of faith does not 
depend upon exact agreement in doctrine, nor is it 
destroyed by the conflict of creeds. "The profession 
of the true religion" is at once the distinctive note 
and the bond of the visible Church. In the mind of 
God and in the experience of believers there must be, 
though we are not able sharply to define it, an essen- 
1 Institutes, book iv. chap. i. 7. 



16 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

tial minimum of truth, sufficient for salvation, and 
therefore sufficient for the unity of the Church. It 
is remarkable that Calvin, in attempting to define this 
essential truth, says nothing about what is peculiar to 
Calvinism. 

u For all the heads of true doctrine are not in the same 
position. Some are so necessary to be known that all must 
hold them to be fixed and undoubted as the proper essen- 
tials of religion, — for instance, that God is one ; that 
Christ is God, and the Son of God ; and that our salvation 
depends on the mercy of God ; and the like. Others, again, 
which are the subjects of controversy among the churches, 
do not destroy the unity of the faith." 1 

We have an admirable and universally accepted sum- 
mary of essential truth in the Apostles' Creed, which was 
adopted — or rather retained — by all the Eeformers. 
Calvin made it the basis of his Institutes. This creed 
of creeds, as we understand it, recognizes the Holy 
Catholic Church as a visible body. " The communion 
of saints" is not merely explanatory of "the Holy 
Catholic Church," still less is it a tautology, expressing 
the same idea in another form. The first statement 
describes the Church as visible, and the second as invis- 
ible. To identify the two is to mar the simplicity and 

1 Calvin's Institutes, book iv. chap. i. 12. 

The unity of the visible Body and Church of Christ consisteth 
in that uniformity which all persons belonging thereunto have, by 
reason of that one Lord whose servants they all profess themselves, 
by reason of that one faith which they all acknowledge, and by reason 
of that one baptism wherewith they are all initiated. The visible 
Church is therefore one in outward profession of those things which 
supernaturally pertain to the very essence of Christianity, and are 
necessarily required in every particular Christian man. — Hooker : 
Ecc. Polity, book iii. chap. i. 3, 4. 



THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 17 

beauty of the creed, and to obliterate what is essential 
to its completeness as a symbol of the Catholic faith. 1 
But whether this is true of the Apostles' Creed or not, it 
is certainly true of the Scriptures. They recognize the 
Church as both invisible and visible. And in both as- 
pects it is a living organism, whose head is Christ, and 
whose members are His Body. As the soul without the 
body could not accomplish its life-work on earth, nor 
inherit its full redemption in heaven (see Bom. viii. 
23), so the Church of the living God, regarded simply 
as an invisible communion of saints, or as a manifesta- 
tion of faith in the lives of individuals, could not be 
"the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. iii. 19) 
on earth, neither could it " make known to the princi- 
palities and powers in heavenly places the manifold 
wisdom of God" (Eph. iii. 10). We contend, there- 
fore, that the visible Church is just as much a true 
church as the invisible. It is " not a mere abstract 
idea, a convenient expression for the number of all 
those who visibly profess the faith of Christ through- 
out the world. It is made up of all those who, visi- 
bly professing the faith of Christ, are constituted by 
that profession into one corporate body, and stand in one 
outward covenant relationship to Christ. This, so far 
as regards the visible Church, is the primary and usual 
application of the term in Scripture. The application 
of it to local churches or separate congregations is only 
a subordinate and secondary meaning." 2 

The first announcement that the visible Church, under 
its New Testament form, was about to be established, 
was made by John the Baptist when he preached in 
the wilderness of Judaea, saying, " Bepent ye, for the 

1 Appendix to Lecture I. (B). 

2 Bannerman, Church of Christ, i. 44. 

2 



18 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. iii. 2). • The 
same announcement was repeated by Christ at the be- 
ginning of His public ministry (Matt. iii. 17). The 
kingdom of God, of Christ, and of Heaven, as we shall 
undertake to show in a future lecture, are synony- 
mous, and interchangeable with the Church of God 
and of Christ. 

The first reference in the New Testament to the 
Church under the name of the ecclesia is found in the 
promise of Christ to Peter, " On this rock I will build 
My Church" (Matt, xvi 18), or, as it might be more 
accurately rendered, " I will build the Church for My- 
self." This gives the true emphasis to the promise; 
for at the time it was uttered, Jesus and His disciples 
had been excommunicated from the existing Church, 
and He was on his way to be crucified. He did not 
during His life set up a visible society apart from the 
Jewish church of the time, but He made prepara- 
tions for doing so after His death. And now, with 
the shadows of death and apparent failure thickening 
about Him, He says to Peter, as the spokesman and 
representative of the chosen twelve, " I will build the 
Church for Myself, and I will build it on thee." Our 
first glimpse of the actual fulfilment of this promise is 
in the record of the day of Pentecost : " Then they that 
gladly received his word/' the word preached by Peter, 
" were baptized : and the same day there were added [to 
Peter and the rest of the Apostles] about three thousand 
souls. And they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' 
doctrine and fellov; ship, and in creaking of bread, and in 
prayers. And the Lord added to the Church daily such 
as were being saved " (Acts ii. 41, 42, 47). 

Here, then, we have the Church of Christ fully 
organized and equipped, with its living ministry, its 



THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 19 

assemblies for worship, its administration of baptism 
and the Lord's Supper, — still abiding indeed under the 
shadow of the Old Testament Church, and recruiting 
from it, but having a separate organic life of its own; 
and to this visible Church God adds those who were 
being saved, as the Divinely appointed means of saving 
them. From this time on to the end of the inspired 
history the Church is a body conspicuously visible, both 
as a society for the propagation of the Gospel and as 
an object of persecution. Saul "made havoc of the 
Church" (Acts viii. 3). "Herod stretched forth his 
hand to vex certain of the Church" (Acts xii. 1). 
" Prayer was made without ceasing of the Church unto 
God for Peter" (Acts xii. 5). Paul exhorts the elders 
of Ephesus "to feed the Church of God, which He 
hath purchased with His own blood" (Acts xx. 28). 
What candid reader can fail to see in this record of 
trial and of triumph, and in the conspicuous ministry 
of the Apostle by whom this visible society was first 
gathered and organized, the exact fulfilment of the 
Saviour's promise, "Thou art Peter, and on this rock 
I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall 
not prevail against it " ? * 

Taken in their obvious and natural sense, how easy 
Christ's words are to be understood ; and so far as they 
apply especially to Peter, how fully are they justified 
by the facts recorded in the Acts of the Apostles ! 
He was not separated from the others, neither was he 
exalted above them as an infallible primate. Paul 

1 This interpretation plainly doth agree with the matter of fact 
and of history, which is the best interpreter of right and privilege in 
such cases ; for we may reasonably understand our Saviour to have 
promised that which in effect we see performed. — Isaac Barrow : 
Works, iii. 104. 



20 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

certainly did not recognize any such primacy when he 
"withstood Peter to the face because he was to be 
blamed" (Gal. ii. 11). But he was distinguished as the 
first and most successful in setting up the New Tes- 
tament Church among both Jews and Gentiles, as is 
clearly shown in the account of the day of Pentecost, 
and in opening the door of the Church to the Gentiles 
in the case of Cornelius (Acts x.). 1 If this interpre- 
tation seems to belittle while it preserves the integ- 
rity of a saying which has filled the world with the 
noise and smoke of controversy, it is only because 
this controversy has distorted and. exaggerated the 
saying to proportions that were not dreamed of for 
five centuries after the Saviour's death. We have 
dwelt on this passage, not for Peter's sake, but for the 
sake of the Church. It is the most emphatic and con- 
spicuous of those Scriptures which show that Christ 
came not merely to preach a doctrine and to establish 
forces by which the world is to be regenerated, but to 



1 The position taken by Peter fully justifies this highly figurative 
language of the Master. During all His public ministry Peter stood 
by His side. He was with Him on the Mount of Transfiguration, 
and in the Garden of Gethsemane at the moment of His arrest. He 
stood on Mount Olivet on the day He was taken up. When the 
Holy Spirit fell on the disciples, he was there to tell sinners of the 
Crucified whom God had made both Lord and Christ, and to invite 
them to come to Him by faith and repentance. In those glorious 
days when the Church was increased by daily additions of such as 
were being saved, Peter occupied the most conspicuous place. To 
join the Church was for a man to unite himself to Peter and to the 
Apostles who were about him. They were foundation-stones as well 
as he, for the Church is built upon the Apostles ; but he is a rock as 
compared witli them, — that is, he is distinguished among them for 
talents, labors, and success. — Dr. Thomas Witherow: Form of 
the Christian Temple, p. 440. 



THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 21 

embody the truth and conserve these forces in a visible 
society, — even a Church against which the gates of hell 
shall not prevail. 1 

Nor is this the only passage whose testimony in favor 
of the visible Catholic Church has been spiritualized 
away. Take, for example, the words of Paul in Gal. iv. 
26: "Jerusalem which now is, is in bondage with her 
children ; but Jerusalem which is above is free, which is 
the mother of us all." By the Jerusalem which is above 
and free, the Apostle does not mean heaven, or the final 
state of the blessed, about which we sing so sweetly, 
" mother, dear Jerusalem ; " neither did he mean the 
invisible " Church of the first-born, which are written in 
heaven." He meant the visible Church under the New 
Testament dispensation, which is free from the yoke of 
bondage to the ceremonies of the Levitical law; and 
this Church he calls by the endearing name of " mother." 
Seventeen centuries ago, Cyprian said, " He cannot have 
God for his father who has not the Church for his mother." 
Do we think this an exaggerated statement, suited only 
to those whom we call High Churchmen by way of re- 
proach ? Then Calvin was a High Churchman, for he 
appropriates Cyprian's words without any qualification. 
" To those to whom God is a father, the Church must 
also be a mother. This was true not merely under the 
law, but even after the advent of Christ, since Paul de- 
clares that we are the children of the new, even a heav- 
enly Jerusalem, in Gal. iv. 26." 2 Again, he says still 
more explicitly: "As it is now our purpose to discourse 
of the visible Church, let us learn, from her single title 
of mother, how useful, nay, how necessary, the knowledge 

s See Appendix to Lecture I. (C). 
2 Institutes, book iv. chap. i. 1. 



22 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

of her is, since there is no other means of entering into 
life, unless she conceives us in the womb and gives us 
birth, unless she nourishes us at her breasts, and, in short, 
keeps us under her charge and government until, divested 
of mortal flesh, we become like the angels." 1 We do not 
accept the inferences of Cyprian and of Calvin in regard 
to the absolute necessity of having the visible Church as 
our mother, but we cannot deny the correctness of their 
interpretation of Paul's words. It is evident from the 
whole context that by " the Jerusalem which is above 
and is the mother of us all," the Apostle means the visi- 
ble Church under its New Testament form. The free- 
dom which he claims for her is deliverance from the yoke 
of the Levitical law, which no one ever imagined to be 
imposed upon the Church invisible. If by the " mother 
of us all " the Apostle meant the elect people of God in 
all ages, then his plea for freedom would apply to the 
Old Testament saints as well as to Christians ; and the 
inevitable conclusion would be that he condemned cir- 
cumcision and the observance of the Levitical law under 
the Old Testament dispensation, — which is absurd. But 
that he refers to the visible Church under the New Tes- 
tament, and pleads for the freedom of its members, is 
evident from what follows : " Stand fast therefore in the 
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not 
entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I 
Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall 
profit you nothing " (Gal. v. 1, 2). 

Thus Paul believed in the Holy Catholic Church, and 
dignified her position and magnified her offices by call- 
ing her " the mother of us all." When we come to dis- 
cuss the unity of the visible Church, we shall show that 
he calls her also " the Body of Christ " (in 1 Corinthians 
1 Institutes, book iv. chap. i. 4. 



THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 23 

xii. and Ephesians iv.). Meantime, if it offends either 
our theology or our taste to confer such high titles upon 
a society which contains false as well as true professors 
of religion, let us remember that Christ Himself taught 
the same thing when He said, " I am the true vine ; " 
and proceeds to show that in this vine there are unfruit- 
ful branches, whose end is to be burned. 



LECTURE II. 

THE KINGDOM OF CHKIST. 

" r I A HE visible Church — which is also catholic, or 
-*- universal, under the Gospel, not confined to one 
nation, as before under the law — consists of all those 
throughout the world that profess the true religion, to- 
gether with their children, and is the kingdom of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God." 

This statement of the Westminster Confession is 
exceeding broad. There is nothing secular nor sec- 
tarian in it. It admits no limitations of time or 
place. Eising above all distinctions based upon forms 
of Church government, modes of worship, and formula- 
ries of doctrine, it is as wide and as elastic in its em- 
brace as the ever-extending bounds of Christendom. 
(1) It recognizes all who profess Christianity as mem- 
bers of the visible Church of Christ. It leaves open 
the questions : What is essential to Christianity ? and 
What constitutes a profession of the true religion ? But 
we think no candid answer to these questions can ex- 
clude from the Holy Catholic Church the members 
of the Church of Eome, of the Eastern Church, or 
of any of the Christian denominations which have 
grown out of the Protestant Eeformation. 1 (2) Our 

1 Calvin recognizes the Roman Catholic Church, aside from the 
papacy, as part of the visible Church of Christ. " But as in pulling 
down buildings the foundations and ruins are permitted to remain, 
so God did not suffer Antichrist either to subvert His Church from 



THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 25 

definition recognizes the children of all who profess the 
true religion as members of the Church of Christ. They 
are not brought into it by conversion, nor do they join 
it by their own voluntary professions, but they are 
born into it, and their baptism is the recognition of 
their Christian birthright. This vital principle will 
be demonstrated and emphasized in a future lecture. 
(3) Our definition separates the visible Church from all 
forms of human government and from the origin and 
destiny of all earthly empires. It is not confined to 
any nation, nor identified with any national policy. It 
is not the Eepublic of God in America, and the king- 
its foundations or to level it with the ground, but was pleased that 
amid the devastation the edifice should remain, though half in ruin. 
While therefore we are unwilling to concede the name of church to 
the Papists, we do not deny that there are churches among them " 
(Institutes, book iv., chap. ii. 11, 12). 

In accordance with these views, Calvin and all the Reformers re- 
fused to be re-baptized. 

The Westminster Confession does not call the Roman Catholic 
Church, but only the Pope, "that Antichrist, that man of sin and son 
of perdition that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ and 
all that is called God." Both Calvin and Luther adopt the same 
questionable exegesis of 2 Thess. ii. 4 ; but they turn it into an argu- 
ment to prove that the Church of Rome is still the temple of God, 
otherwise how could the Pope exalt himself in that temple ? 

" The claims of the Roman Church rest upon a broader and more 
solid base than the papacy, which is only the form of her govern- 
ment. The papal hierarchy was often corrupt, as the Jewish hier- 
archy, and some Popes were as corrupt as Caiaphas ; but this fact 
cannot destroy the claims nor invalidate the ordinances of the 
Roman Church, which from the days of the Apostles to the Reforma- 
tion has been identified with the fortunes of Western Christendom, 
and which remains to this day the largest visible Church in the 
world. To deny her church character is to stultify history and 
nullify the promises of Christ" (Schaff, History of the Christian 
Church, vi. 533.) 



26 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

dom of God in Great Britain. It is everywhere the 
kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, governed by its own 
laws, and subject to its one Divine Head. The attempt 
to defend any form of Church government by its real or 
supposed resemblance to the civil institutions of any 
country (as, for example, when the polity of the Presby- 
terian Church is commended upon the ground that it 
resembles the Constitution of the United States of 
America) can be justified only upon the admitted prin- 
ciple that "there are some circumstances concerning the 
worship of God and the government of the Church com- 
mon to human actions and societies, which are to be 
ordered by the light of Nature and Christian prudence, 
according to the general rules of the word, which are 
always to be observed." 2 

The candid application of this principle sweeps away 
from all existing denominations of Christians the exclu- 
sive claim to a jure divino Church government, but 
it leaves untouched the fact that Christ, as King and 
Head of His Church, hath appointed therein a govern- 
ment in the hands of church officers, distinct from the 
civil magistrate. 2 As the religion of Christ is designed 
for and suited to all mankind, the Church of Christ has 
the world for its empire, and all nations and kindreds 
for its subjects. (4) And this brings us to the crown- 
ing point in our definition : The visible Church of Christ 
is the kingdom of Christ. To demonstrate this doctrine 
and apply some of its inferences is the design of the 
present lecture. 

I. That the Church of Christ is the kingdom of 
Christ is evident from the fact that He uses the two 
words as synonymous and interchangeable. When He 

1 Westminster Confession, chap. i. 6. 

2 Ibid., xxx. 1. 



THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 27 

said, " Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build My 
Church" He immediately adds, "and I will give to thee 
the keys of the kingdom of heaven" Can any unbiassed 
reader deny that the kingdom w T hose keys were given to 
Peter is one and the same thing with the Church which 
was to be built on him ? The keys of death and hell are 
in Christ's own girdle (Eev. i. 18) ; the key of heaven, 

— the right to admit or exclude from the final abode of 
the saints, is in His own hands. There He shuts, and no 
man opens ; He opens, and no man shuts. And so also 
the entrance into the invisible Church is absolutely with 
Christ. He is Himself the door (John x. 7). But the 
keys — that is, the doctrine and discipline — of the king- 
dom of heaven on earth are committed to Peter and the 
rest of the Apostles and to all whom they represent; 
and the kingdom in which they exercise their office of 
binding and loosing — that is, of forbidding and allovring 

— can be none other than the visible Church of Christ. 
The same truth is evident from the claim of Jesus 

of Nazareth to be the Messiah, He made these claims 
with a full knowledge of the character and work at- 
tributed to Him in the Messianic prophecies. He was 
to come indeed meek and lowly ; but nevertheless He 
was to come as a king ; and to those who beheld the 
glory of the only begotten Son, full of grace and truth, 
His essential royalty and the glorious majesty of His 
kingdom were the more resplendent by contrast with 
the meanness of His outward condition. They who re- 
ceived Him fell down and worshipped, saying, " Kabbi, 
Thou art the Son of God, Thou art the King of Israel;" 
and He accepted their homage. 

Moreover, in His teaching He constantly declares that 
His messiahship involves the actual setting up of that 
kingdom which shall never be destroyed (Dan. ii. 44). 



28 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

How explicit are these words : " Verily I say unto you, 
there be some standing here which shall not taste of death 
till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom " 
(Matt. xvi. 28). 1 This prediction stands in immediate 
connection with the saying to Peter, " On this rock I 
will build My Church, and I will give unto thee the 
keys of the kingdom of heaven." It evidently refers 
to the same thing. ISTo ingenuity of interpretation can 
make " the Son of Man coming in His kingdom " mean 
the second coming of the Son of Man " in the glory of 
His Father with the holy angels, to reward every man 
according to his works " (Matt. xvi. 27) ; because the 
point and emphasis of the prediction is that its fulfil- 
ment should occur during the lifetime of some who 
were standing there. Neither, again, can it be made to 
refer to the coming of God's kingdom and the reign of 
Divine grace through Christ in the souls of individual 
men. What Christ predicted was a new and visible 
thing. It was not merely an experience, but a phe- 
nomenon. They were to see the kingdom coming with 
power. To quote Christ's words, " the kingdom of 
heaven cometh not with observation, but is within 
you," or the words of Paul, that " the kingdom of God 
is not meat nor drink, but righteousness and peace and 
joy in the Holy Ghost," as a proof that the Church, or 
kingdom, is not a visible organization, is about as can- 
did and conclusive as it would be to cite the saying of 
Napoleon III., " The Empire is peace," to prove that the 
Second Empire of France was only a private experience 
in the hearts of Frenchmen. 2 

1 Mark has it, " Till they have seen the kingdom- of God come 
with power " (Mark ix. 1). In Luke it is more briefly expressed, 
" Till they see the kingdom of God" (Luke ix. 27). 

2 Nor are these predictions concerning the coming of the Son of 



THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 29 

The visible Church must in fact be the kingdom of 
Christ, because He is its Sovereign Head. When the 
Father " bringeth His first-begotten into the world, He 
saith, Thy throne, God, is for ever and ever." And 
when the Son of God had by Himself purged our sins, 
He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high, 
" being made so much better than the angels, as He hath 
by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than 
they " (Heb. i. 8, 4). In the religious teaching of our 
day this inherited kingship and royal authority of the 
Son of God is too much ignored. What sometimes 
claims to be pre-eminently the preaching of Christ and 
Him crucified, is but half the Gospel. His priestly 
functions in sacrifice and intercession are too exclu- 
sively insisted upon. Christ is greater than His cross. 
His sacrifice, while it is the centre, is not the circum- 
ference of Christianity. He is a teacher sent from God. 
The rest He gives to the soul is not obtained simply by 
coming to Him, but by taking His yoke upon us and 
learning of Him. The Sermon on the Mount is ad- 
dressed to His disciples ; its beatitudes delineate their 
character; its exposition of the moral law lays down 
the rule of their life ; and the morality it enforces is an 
essential part both of the result and the process of 
salvation. Christ's kingship underlies both His pro- 
Man in His kingdom, in the near future, inconsistent with the fact 
on which Christ constantly insisted, — that His kingdom had already 
come. " The law and the prophets were until John : since that 
time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into 
it " (Luke xvi. 16). " The kingdom of God is within you," or, as 
it is more correctly rendered in the Revised Version, " among you " 
(Luke xvii. 21). It was in its germ a present reality. Its future 
coming was but the development of what already existed. The 
Church which was visibly inaugurated at the day of Pentecost had 
been previously constituted and organized in the family of Christ. 



30 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

phetic and His priestly office, and imparts an infinite 
value and efficacy to both. He is a royal priest after 
an order more ancient than Aaron's, a royal prophet 
after the type of David. While grace is poured into 
His lips, He girds His sword upon His thigh and rides 
forth in His glory and majesty. He is exalted a Prince 
and a Saviour. He is able to save to the uttermost, be- 
cause all power is His. And this exaltation is not the 
conference of a new dignity, but simply a return, as the 
Head of a redeemed people, to the glory He had with 
the Father before the foundation of the world. His 
humiliation on earth did not annul His authority, but 
only obscured its outward manifestation for a time. 
When He lay as a swaddled infant in the manger, 
" the government was on His shoulder," and both angels 
and wise men recognized Him as the Prince of Peace. 
When He stood in the dignity and glory of His humil- 
iation before Pilate, with a crown of thorns more re- 
splendent than gold, inlaid with drops of blood more 
precious than all royal gems, He witnessed a good con- 
fession. " Thou sayest it, — I am a king. To this end 
was I born, and for this cause came I into the w T orld, 
that I should bear witness unto the truth " (John xviii. 
37). This claim was the ground on which He was con- 
demned and crucified. And this is still the point at 
which He is accepted or rejected. No one can take 
Christ for a Saviour without confessing Him to be the 
Son of God and the king of Israel. 

Now, if Christ is a King in His glory before the 
world was, — in His humiliation, in His exaltation, — 
where and what is His kingdom ? It is not the uni- 
versal sovereignty of God, whose throne is established 
in the heavens, and whose dominion ruleth over all, 
— for that kingdom neither comes nor goes, — it is 



THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 31 

not set up, nor increased, but is from everlasting to 
everlasting. Neither, on the other hand, is it, as Dr. 
Bruce and others maintain, merely " the reign of Divine 
love exercised by His grace over human hearts believ- 
ing in His love, and constrained thereby to yield Him 
grateful affection and devoted service." x For the reign 
of Divine love was not first set up or proclaimed in the 
ministry of Christ, nor were believers under the new 
dispensation the first to respond to the love of God. 
This Divine and gracious dominion over the human 
heart began at the closed gate of Paradise, and runs 
through all dispensations. What Christ established and 
proclaimed was a new embodiment and a more visible 
incorporation of the same reign of Divine love, accord- 
ing to the promises which God " spake by the mouth of 
His holy prophets, which have been since the world 
began" (Luke ii. 70). 

The kingdom which Daniel prophesied should be set 
up in the days of the Son of Man, 2 whose approach was 
announced by John the Baptist, 3 which Christ Himself 
declared to be near at hand, 4 and which He commanded 
His disciples to go forth and proclaim ; 5 the kingdom 
which He promised that the men of that generation 
should see before they tasted death, 6 and which they 
did see in its power on the day of Pentecost ; the king- 
dom of God which Paul preached by the space of three 
years in the church at Ephesus ; 7 the kingdom whose 
keys were given to Peter and the other Apostles as the 
representatives of all church officers, and for whose 
increase all Christians are to pray and to labor, — can 
be none other than the visible Church of Christ. 

1 Bruce on the Kingdom of God, p. 46. 

2 Dan. ii. 44. 3 Matt. iii. 2. 4 Matt. iv. 17. 

5 Matt. x. 7. 6 Matt. xvi. 28. 7 Acts xx. 25, 31. 



32 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

Our Lord's parables outline the history of His king- 
dom from the days of His own ministry to the day 
of judgment. In the Sower we are taught that "the 
word of the kiugdom," which is the same thing with 
the Gospel, will be diversely received, according to the 
moral condition of the hearers; in the Tares and the 
Drag-net, that good and evil are to co-exist in the king- 
dom until the final judgment at the end of the world ; 
in the Mustard-seed and the Leaven, that the kingdom 
of God is destined to grow both inwardly and out- 
wardly, invisibly and visibly ; in the Seed springing up 
into the blade, the ear and the full corn in the ear, that 
the progress and triumph of the kingdom is not by the 
sudden annihilation of evil, but by the slow and steady 
unfolding of good. Where is there, or where can there 
ever be, a fulfilment of these prophetic descriptions, if it 
is not recorded in the history of the visible Church ? 

And yet the visible Church is not the kingdom of 
Christ in any exclusive sense. The kingdom is syno- 
nymous with the Church in both its aspects, visible 
and invisible. Christ reigns in the souls of all true 
believers as well as in the organized body of professed 
believers. The grace which is bestowed on men, above 
and aside from all human agency, " through the Spirit 
which worketh when and where and how He pleaseth," 1 
is the exercise of His kingly power. And so also the 
indirect influences which the Gospel and the institutions 
of Christianity exert upon and through the literature, 
the civil institutions, and the commerce of the world, 
— all beloucr to the kiusrdom of Christ. Christ Himself 
speaks both of the Church and of the kingdom as in- 
visible to men when He compares it to leaven hid in 
three measures of meal, and to the seed that grows 
1 Confession, chap. x. sect. 3. 



THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 33 

in secret. But to infer from such passages that the 
kingdom of God and of heaven is always, or even 
pre-eminently, invisible, is to narrow the meaning of 
Scripture and miss the main point of its parables. The 
kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard-seed 
which grows into a great tree, so that the birds lodge 
in its branches. Is not such a tree a visible object ? 
It is like a field in which an enemy sows tares among 
the wheat. Is not such a field a visible reality ? It 
is like a net cast into the sea and gathering fishes of 
every kind. Is such a net only an ideal and invisible 
thing ? 

We have said that the Church and the kingdom are 

o 

synonymous and interchangeable terms. By this it is 
not meant that there is no difference at all between 
them. Synonyms are not an arbitrary and wanton 
multiplication of words, with no variableness in their 
meaning. The Scriptures do not give different names 
to the same conceptions, but they do give different 
names to different aspects of the same things. Just as 
the infinite fulness of Christ is indicated and measura- 
bly expressed by the great variety of His titles, so in the 
Church, which is His Body, as there are diversities of 
gifts and operations, there is also a diversity of names. 

II. What, then, is the precise ground of the distinc- 
tion between the Church and the kingdom of Christ ? 
What ideas does this title add to our conceptions of 
the Church, and by what facts is that idea illustrated ? 
This is a far-reaching question, and the answers are 
various. They are not always distinctly given ; they 
overlap and shade into each other. But they may be 
summarized with sufficient clearness in the following 
propositions : (1) The term " kingdom " indicates the re- 
lation which the visible Church should sustain to the 

3 



34 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

State ; (2) The kingdom represents the moral and spiri- 
tual forces of Christianity, aside altogether from its pos- 
itive institutions; (3) The Church is called the kingdom 
by way of anticipation, the one being only preparatory 
to the other ; (4) The Church and the kingdom are 
identical ; the kingdom expressing the Divine authority 
by which the Church exists and acts, and the Divine 
power by which she will ultimately triumph. This we 
hold to be the true theory. 

1. The most prevalent theory, and that which has ex- 
erted the mightiest influence upon the whole course of 
history during the Christian era, is that the term "king- 
dom " as applied to the Church indicates the relation which 
the Church should sustain to the State. Assuming that 
the State is Divine in the same sense and to the same 
extent that the Church is Divine, and that their ultimate 
design is the same ; assuming also that the kingdoms of 
this world are to become the kingdoms of our Lord and 
of His Christ, not to be dashed in pieces as a potter's 
vessel, but to be preserved and perpetuated as kingdoms, 
— Christians have prayed, and intrigued, and fought, and 
deluged the earth with Christian blood, and illuminated 
it with the fires of persecution, in order to realize the 
idea of a Christian State. The practical results of these 
attempts are the inevitable fruit of the doctrine. For if 
the State is Divine, and its ultimate design is the same 
with that of the Church, then the civil magistrate, whose 
symbol is the sword, is as much the ambassador of 
Christ as the minister of God's Word ; and he must not 
bear the sword in vain as the appointed means of propa- 
gating the Church. Once admit the principle that the 
civil magistrate, whether he be king or constable, has 
any official relation to the Church and any official duty 
in the Church, and the conclusion is irresistible that all 



THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 35 

dissent from the religion of the State is an offence to be 
punished by civil pains and penalties, the toleration 
of such dissent is a sin against God, and religious perse- 
cution becomes the highest duty. Persecution does 
not belong to any one form of Church government or 
doctrine. Persecutors have not been blind and unrea- 
soning lovers of human blood. They have reasoned 
correctly, and had the courage of their convictions. 
But their premises were unscriptural and wrong, in the 
assumption that the State is Divine, and co-ordinate in 
its ends with the Church. The attempt to realize the 
idea of a Christian State has been made in each of the 
three possible directions, — (1) by subjecting the Church 
to the State; (2) by subjecting the State to the Church ; 
and (3) by a confederation or covenant between them. 
The first of these experiments was made under the most 
favorable circumstances in the days of Constantine ; and 
twelve centuries after it had failed, in the very con- 
vulsions which were the evidence and the result of 
the failure, the Eeformers made the same experiment 
again in Germany and in Great Britain. The civil 
magistrate, whether elector, king, or emperor, by virtue 
of his office as a ruler in this world, and without regard 
to his personal character or qualifications, was declared 
to be the head of the Church ; and the holy sacraments 
of the Church were made the qualifications for civil 
office and the tests of political loyalty. 

The second attempt to realize the kingdom of God, — 
namely, by subjecting the State to the Church, — was 
made on a grand scale by the Church of Eome ; and its 
success seemed to be complete when the Pope dissolved 
royal marriages, released subjects from allegiance to 
their sovereigns, took away and bestowed crowns at 
his will, and received tribute for kingdoms as feudal 



36 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

dependencies. Then, in the eyes of devout Churchmen, 
the kingdoms of this world seemed to have become the 
kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. We all know 
that the triumph was the signal for revolution and de- 
feat ; that aside from its corruptions in doctrine and 
morals, this magnificent structure of the Church as a 
world empire was built on the sand, and destined to 
decay. And yet, strange to say, in the Eeformation, 
which was the most violent symptom of that decay, 
Calvin repeated in Geneva, on a smaller scale, essentially 
the same experiment to realize the kingdom of God, by 
identifying the State with, and at the same time sub- 
jecting it to, the Church. With what success this 
attempt was made, the condition of that city where his 
grave is searched out and honored chiefly by strangers, 
sufficiently declares. 1 

The most illustrious example of the third form of the 
experiment, by a union and co-ordination of Church and 
State under a solemn league and covenant, belongs to 
the history of the Westminster Assembly. We may not 
say, perhaps, that this assembly wrought better than 
they knew ; but certain it is, — for the event has proved 
it, — that they wrought differently and better than was 
intended by the statesmen and politicians at whose bid- 
ding they assembled. Their theological work, of which 
the Long Parliament was so impatient, is not perfect ; 

1 The principles which underlay Calvin's theological and ecclesi- 
astical system have been a powerful factor in the growth of civil 
liberty. Nevertheless, in the constitution which he created at 
Geneva, the jurisdiction of the Church was extended over the details 
of conduct to such a degree as to abridge unduly the liberty of the 
individual. The power of coercion which was giveu to the civil 
authority subverted freedom in religious opinion and worship. — 
Fisher : History of the Christian Church, p. 329. 



THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 37 

how could it be under their circumstances ? But it is 
the most permanent, because the best, part of their per- 
formance. The political and ecclesiastical peace which 
they made between the churches of England and Scot- 
land as established by law, and which in the intention 
of the Parliament was the chief object of the Assembly, 
lasted just twelve years, and the Presbyterians of Scot- 
land were the most efficient agents in its abolition ; 
though doubtless in this they were deceived and betrayed 
by putting confidence in princes. The Confession which 
was imposed upon England by Act of Parliament, and 
enforced by civil pains and penalties, was never cordially 
accepted by the great mass of the people, who repudi- 
ated it at the first opportunity. 1 And in Scotland the 
blue banner of the Covenant has waved ever since over 
a divided Church, whose divisions have grown chiefly 
out of its connection with the State. The Solemn League 
and Covenant, so far as it was a pledge to God for holy 
living, is alive to-day, and will live forever ; but in so 
far as it was an attempt to co-ordinate Church and State 
in a national covenant which would realize the kingdom 
of God, it is as dead in the hearts of the great mass of 

1 The Westminster Confession was framed on the basis of a close 
alliance of Church and State. The assembly was itself the creature 
of the Long Parliament, appointed and paid by it, and amenable to 
its authority. The Confession, which was sent to the Parliament 
under the title of " the Humble Advice," assigns to the civil govern- 
ment the right and duty of calling synods, protecting orthodoxy, and 
punishing heresy. It thus sanctions the principle of religious per- 
secution ; and the Long Parliament acted on this principle by the 
expulsion of about two thousand clergymen from their livings for 
nonconformity to Puritanism. The Church of England after the 
Restoration fully repaid the act of intolerance, with interest, by 
expelling and starving the Puritan ministers, such as Baxter and 
Bunyan, for nonconformity to Episcopacy. — Schaff : ~Essay on 
Creed Revision, p. 7. 



38 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

the people as the Decrees of Constantine. The Presby- 
terian Church in this country never could have been 
organized under the Westminster Confession without a 
radical revision of its doctrine as to Church and State, 
the repudiation of the essential principle of the Solemn 
League and Covenant, and the substitution of the sub- 
lime truth that "the Lord Jesus Christ, as king and 
head of the Church, hath therein appointed a gov- 
ernment in the hands of Church officers distinct from 
the civil magistrate" and that to these officers, and to 
them alone, "the keys of the kingdom of heaven are 
committed." 1 

These attempts to unify the Church and the State in 
order to realize the kingdom of Christ have all been 
miserable failures, because they embody an unscriptural 
and impracticable principle. Even under the Mosaic 
economy, the theocracy was a failure ; it did not estab- 
lish the kingdom of God from the river to the ends of 
the earth. But the failure was not on God's side, for 
He never intended that economy for more thau a tem- 
porary repository of the truth, until Shiloh should come. 
And Shiloh could not come, according to His promise 
and purpose, until the lawgiver had departed from the 
feet of Judah. The very condition for the setting-up 
of His world-wide kingdom was the abolition of the 
Jewish theocracy, the scattering of that covenanted 
nation, and the casting down of its temple till not one 
stone is left upon another. The throne of David, on 
which Peter declares that Christ was seated on the day 
of Pentecost, is not in Jerusalem, but in heaven. 

The noblest of all these attempts to realize the king- 
dom of Christ, and that which has the best support of 
Scripture and of reason, is the experiment to subject 

1 Confession, chap. xxx. 1, 2. 



THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 39 

the State to the Church, whether it be tried on a large 
scale in Koine, or on a small scale in Geneva. By all 
means, if the Church must have a head on earth in 
order to show her unity and royalty as the kingdom 
of Christ, let it be a pope, and not a kaiser, — Innocent 
III. rather than Henry VIII. ; John Calvin rather than 
John the Elector of Saxony. 1 But, thank God, we are 
not shut up to this hard alternative. " There is no 
other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ." 
Whatever may be our views as to the Antichrist, let us 
cling with a positive and loyal adherence to Christ as 
the only king in Zion. 

Is there then no such thing as a Christian nation ? 
And in order to its final triumph, must not the Church 
of Christ exert her benign and transforming influence 
upon all human institutions and relations, whether po- 
litical, commercial, or social ? Yes, certainly ; this is 
the very end for which she is endowed and set up in 
in the world. But she is not authorized nor fitted to 
do this by direct control, — by " intermeddling with 
civil affairs which concern the commonwealth," by 
dictating the laws of trade, or even by regulating the 
personal and domestic life of men, except as they are 
regulated in the Word of God, which she is to declare 
and enforce upon those who voluntarily submit to her 
government and instruction. Her authority is purely 
ministerial and declarative. But how mighty is it on 
that account! The Gospel is the power of God; the 
sacraments are effectual means of grace and salvation 
through the presence and blessing of Christ ; and these 
are her Divinely given instruments. The Church can 

1 In principle, a magistratical headship is still more indefensible 
than a pontifical headship. — Walker : Scottish Theology and 
Theologians, p. 135. 



40 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

influence the State only by influencing the several in- 
dividuals of which the State is composed ; and the 
State can aid the Church only by protecting the several 
individuals of which the Church is composed, as citizens 
in the exercise of their freedom to worship God and 
propagate the truth. When the Gospel is preached to 
every creature, and just so far as every creature is 
brought under its dominion, the State not only, but 
every Divine and human institution and relation and 
pursuit of human life, will be pervaded and controlled 
by Christian influences. This is God's plan for the 
regeneration of human society and of the world, and it 
is not only sealed with His authority, but backed by 
His power. " All power/' says Christ, " is given unto 
Me." What will He do with it ? Will He dethrone 
Caesar ? Will He revenge Himself upon Pilate ? 
Will He regulate the civil, commercial, and social 
affairs of nations ? No. He simply says : " Go ye 
therefore into all the earth, and preach the Gospel to 
every creature, baptizing them, and teaching them to 
observe whatsoever I have commanded you." His all- 
power works through His Gospel and His sacraments. 

2. At the opposite extreme from the theory that the 
Church of Christ is called His kingdom, — to indicate its 
relation to the kingdoms of this world, — is the notion that 
the kingdom represents the moral and spiritual forces 
which constitute the life of the Church, aside altogether 
from the forms, whether of government, worship, or 
Church activity, through which they operate. Accord- 
ing to this theory, the kingdom of Christ represents 
the influence which the Church exerts upon the hearts 
of men and upon human society, as distinct from the 
relation she sustains to God, and the piety she cultivates 
towards Him. 



THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 41 

Thus Dr. Candlish says : — 

" Both the Church and the kingdom of God are repre- 
sented in the New Testament as having a twofold aspect, — 
external and internal, visible and invisible. The distinction 
is not that the Church is external, and the kingdom of God 
spiritual, — for each has both characters, — but that the 
Church describes the disciples of Christ in their character 
as a religious society, the kingdom of God as a moral so- 
ciety. The special functions of the Church are the exercises 
of worship, and have to do with the relations of men to 
God ; those of the kingdom are the fulfilment of the law of 
love, the doing of the will of God in all departments and 
relations of life." l 

In accordance with these views, he afterwards defines 
the kingdom of Christ " as a cosmopolitan society of 
brotherly love." 2 In order to justify this distinction 
between the Church as religious and the kingdom as 
moral, and to defend his definition from the charge of 
narrowing the function of the Church, Dr. Candlish in- 
sists that " Christian worship, for which the Church is 
united, is not a mere performance of external rites and 
ceremonies,'" but includes " doing good and communi- 
cating, visiting the fatherless and the widows in their 
affliction, and keeping oneself unspotted from the 
world." 3 This is sound doctrine, but it obliterates the 
distinction it is adduced to defend The Church even 
in her exercises of worship has to do with the law of 
love towards men, as well as with her relations to God. 
The first and great commandment of the law cannot be 
separated from the second, which is like unto it. The 
idea of a religious life as separate from the discharge of 

1 Candlish, Kingdom of God, p. 205. 

2 Ibid., p. 240. 

3 Ibid., p. 207. 



42 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

daily duty in all human relations, has no sanction in 
the Word of God ; and the specific function of the 
Church, for the performance of which her worship is at 
once the preparation and the pledge, is to preach the 
Gospel to every creature, and let her light shine into 
the darkened hearts and homes of men. 

3. Intimately connected with the notion that the 
Church is religious while the kingdom is moral, is the 
theory that the Church is called the kingdom only by 
way of anticipation, — that the one is preparatory to the 
other, the Church visible being the training-school for 
the perfecting of moral character, and the Church invisi- 
ble the germ that is to develop at last " into the full and 
perfect moral society which is the kingdom of God." 1 
This distinction between the Church and the kingdom 
is imaginary ; and the restriction of the latter title to 
a full and perfect moral society is altogether arbitrary. 
In the Divine conception and purpose, as revealed in 
Scripture, the Church is a no less perfect ideal than the 
kingdom. It is her destiny to be cleansed and made 
glorious, without spot or wrinkle ; she is Christ's Body ; 
and it is in the Church that " God is to receive glory by 
Jesus Christ throughout all ages, world without end." 2 
It does not expound, but only confuses, the Scriptures to 
depart from their uniform use of names, and to set up 
distinctions which they do not recognize. Christ and 
the Apostles apply both names to the visible society of 
Christians in its present imperfect form. The influence 
which this society is designed and fitted to exert, covers 
all human relations, whether to men or to God. Mo- 
rality, in the broadest sense of the word, is an essential 
part of religion. The Gospel is good -will towards 

1 Candlish, Kingdom of God, p. 208. 

2 Epliesians v. 27; i. 23; iii. 21. 



THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 43 

men, as well as glory to God. The Church will not 
grow into the kingdom of God, nor the kingdom of 
God into the Church ; but the Church, which is the 
kingdom of God, will grow out of its present imperfect 
state into its final completeness and glory. And this 
growth is not from the visible into the invisible, but in 
the opposite direction. The invisible and the spiritual 
is the vital force, the moulding power, the infallible 
security for the continuance and ultimate completeness 
of the visible, — just as the seed is the vitality of the 
tree, as the leaven works in and assimilates the meal 
with which it is incorporated, as the vine-stock sustains 
the vine from which the non-fruitful branches are ex- 
purged. In the Church, which is the body of Christ, 
there will be a perfect realization of the transforming 
power Milton attributes to saintly chastity, — 

" Casting a beam on th' outward shape, 
The unpolluted temple of the mind, 
And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence, 
Till all be made immortal." 

The image of the earthly will be transfigured into the 
image of the heavenly, and become more manifestly 
real, more resplendently visible, by the change. The 
word " kingdom," as applied to the Church, expresses 
the Divine authority and power by which this trans- 
formation will be accomplished. That power is not the 
less real and mighty through God because its weapons 
are not carnal, but spiritual. The name and the essential 
idea of a kingdom belongs to the Church in both its 
aspects, but is more insisted upon in its application to 
the visible Church, because it is through its agency so 
far as any human agency is employed, that God will 
accomplish His purposes in the regeneration of the 
world, and because its complete visibility is the main 



44 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

fact in the final and perfect triumph of the Church. 
The unsearchable riches of Christ are to be preached 
unto the Gentiles, to the intent that unto the princi- 
palities and powers in heavenly places might be made 
known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God, that 
all men and angels " may see what is the fellowship of 
the mystery which from the beginning of the world 
hath been hid in God." This is the consummation for 
which we pray when we say, " Thy kingdom come." 1 
This is the doctrine of the Westminster Confession con- 
cerning the mission and destiny of the Church. " To this 
catholic visible Church Christ has given the ministry, 
oracles, and ordinances of God for the gathering and per- 
fecting of the saints in this life to the end of the world, 
and doth by His own presence and Spirit, according to 
His promise, make them effectual thereunto." 2 

III. In open and square opposition to this doctrine 
we have the Millenarian, which is the revival and per- 
petuation of the ancient Chiliastic theory. According 
to this theory the visible Church and the kingdom of 

1 In one sense the kingdom is already come, — it is established in 
spiritual power, and all its forces are at work. But, as Saint Au- 
gustine has expressed it, " Non adhuc regnat hoc regnum ; " for it 
has yet to grow like the mustard-seed, to work its way like the 
leaven through all the institutions of the world ; it has yet to bear 
its universal witness to all the nations : only so can the kingdom 
come in its glory. All this is expressed in the double use of all the 
characteristic Gospel terms, as of things already enjoyed, and yet of 
things still to be hoped for. We are sons, yet " we wait for the 
adoption ; " we are redeemed, yet we " wait for the redemption of 
our bodies ; " we are saved, yet our " salvation draweth nigh," and 
is "nearer than when we believed." But it is because the present 
Church is a simple anticipation of the Church as it is to be — 
the same society at an earlier stage — that even now it is called the 
kingdom of heaven. — Gore : The Church and the Ministry, p. 43. 

2 Westminster Confession, chap. xxv. sect. 3. 



THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 45 

Christ have no vital connection ; they are neither 
contemporaneous nor co-operative. The one is simply 
the antecedent, but not in any active or efficient sense 
the preparation, for the other. The kingdom of Christ 
is a third dispensation, distinct from the Church under 
both its Old and its New Testament economy. The 
coming of this third dispensation will not be a develop- 
ment, but a catastrophe. The kingdom came near and 
was offered to the Jews in Christ's day ; but they re- 
jected the offer, and crucified their King, and therefore 
the setting up of the kingdom was postponed to the 
second coining of Christ. Meantime the visible Church 
is established, and maintained as a temporary expedient. 
Her mission is to preach the Gospel to all nations for 
"a witness against them." Under this Gospel dispen- 
sation the world is not to grow better, but worse, until 
Christ returns again to destroy it by the brightness of 
His coming, and to set up His kingdom on its ruins. 
Under all the variety of form and coloring in which 
this theory has been held, its foundation-principle is 
the doctrine that the kingdom of God is not to be 
established, nor even inaugurated, upon earth by means 
of agencies and influences now at work, but is to come 
by " a sudden supernatural interposition, that will usher 
in a new dispensation and break all continuity between 
the present and the millennial age." 1 We cannot enter 
at length into the discussion of this theory, nor is it 
necessary to do so. Its sufficient refutation lies on the 
surface of the New Testament and in the most familiar 
words of Christ. He called His Church, which He 
promised to build, " the kingdom of heaven," and deliv- 
ered the keys of its doctrine and discipline to His living 
Apostles. He used the phrase, " preaching the kingdom 
1 Candlish, Kingdom of God, p. 336. 



46 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

of God," as synonymous and identical with the preach- 
ing of the Gospel. He constantly spoke of the king- 
dom as a present reality, " in the midst " of those who 
heard Him, and told His hearers what it was like, and 
how it would reach its final consummation at the day 
of judgment. 

The New Testament knows of only one decisive break 
in the continuity of this dispensation of the Gospel and 
of the Spirjt. The harvest is the end of the world. 
The day of judgment will wind up the affairs of this 
world, "gather out of His kingdom all things that 
offend, and them that do iniquity," banish the wicked 
into everlasting punishment, and welcome the righteous 
into life eternal. Moreover, — and this is our main 
objection to this millenarian theory, — the precepts of 
Christ in regard to the administration of His ordinances 
and the extension of His Church are all backed with 
the promise of success, not with the prophecy of failure. 
These are all optimistic, not pessimistic. The agencies 
He instituted in His Church are Divinely adapted and 
made efficient for their end, and that end is the triumph 
of His redeeming love. God in Christ is reconciling the 
world unto Himself, and has committed the word of 
reconciliation to His ministers as to the ambassadors of 
a king. The preaching of the Gospel to all nations is 
not merely for a witness against them, it is the instru- 
ment of their conversion. Its burden is not the cry of 
Jonah, " Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed," 
but the yearning call of redeeming love, "Look unto 
Me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth." It is to 
be preached, not in the spirit of a witness who testifies 
against those who are to be destroyed, but in the spirit 
of one who persuades men, and in the confidence of one 
who believes that the result of his persuasion will be 



THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 47 

their salvation. The ground of this confidence is the 
authority of Christ, and the Divine power by which that 
authority is enforced. And this authority and power, 
crowning Him as the Head of the visible Church, un- 
derlying and pervading all the oracles, ordinances, and 
sacraments which are committed to her, make the vis- 
ible Church, in all the stages of her history, from her 
inauguration at the day of Pentecost to her coronation 
at the day of judgment, "the kingdom of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, the house and family of God." 



LECTURE III. 

THE UNITY OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 

BECAUSE the Holy Catholic Church consists of all 
those throughout the world who profess the true 
religion, some have hastily inferred that the visibility 
of the Church is nothing more than the visibility of 
the individuals who belong to it, and that its unity is 
merely an ideal aggregation of its members. They 
might as well say that because a city or State consists 
of the whole number of its inhabitants, therefore it is 
nothing more than an imaginary collection of those who 
are born or adopted into it. The United States of 
America consists of sixty millions of people ; therefore 
these people are the United States; and since their 
unity depends ultimately upon their opinions and senti- 
ments, their unity is altogether inward and invisible. 
This reasoning, which is manifestly absurd when ap- 
plied to a kingdom of this world, is no less so when 
applied to the kingdom of Christ. Citizenship neces- 
sarily implies an organized State. The professing Chris- 
tian is " no longer a stranger and foreigner, but a fellow- 
citizen with the saints, and of the household of God." 
A member of the Church, as the name implies, is a 
part of a body, which, though it has many members, 
is one body. This is Paul's reasoning. He says to 
the Church of God, which is at Corinth, including 
both worthy and unworthy members, " Now ye are the 
body of Christ, and members in particular " (1 Cor. xiL 



THE UNITY OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 49 

27). It is in this same body that God has set apostles, 
prophets, and teachers. To make it mean the invisible 
Church of the elect, leads to endless contradiction and 
absurdity. "For upon that supposition no minister 
could ever exercise his office towards any non-elected man, 
the pastoral relation could never be fixed without know- 
ing beforehand who are the elect of God; or else no 
person, however blasphemous and abominable, could be 
kept out of a church, because such a blasphemer and 
injurious may possibly be a chosen vessel." x The same 
remarks apply to the interpretation of the fourth chap- 
ter of Ephesians, where the Apostle tells us " there is 
one body, and one Spirit " (verse 4).- The body is not 
the Spirit, but that in which the Spirit dwells, through 
whose members He works and manifests His presence. 
It is to this same body that Christ, in His ascension, gave 
gifts; namely, "apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, 
and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the 
work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of 
Christ " (Eph. iv. 11, 12). These ascension gifts were not 
bestowed upon the " Church of the first-born, which are 
written in heaven," neither is the work of the ministry 
confined to those who are members of the mystical body 
of Christ, and known only to God ; nor are these gifts 
and this work of the ministry peculiar to any congrega- 
tion of professed believers, nor to any combination of 
such particular churches. The one body can be noth- 
ing less than the visible Catholic Church. The truth of 
this position is further demonstrated by the scope and 
design of the Apostle's argument in both of the passages 
to which we have referred. That design is, positively, 
to " keep the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace " 
(Eph. iv. 3), and negatively, that there " be no schism in 

1 Dr. John M, Mason, Works, ii. 287. 
4 



50 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

the body" (1 Cor. xii. 25.) The unity of the Spirit is 
not a mere spiritual unity, which has no outward embodi- 
ment and expression. It is the same unity for which 
Christ prayed, " that they all may be one ; that the world 
may believe that Thou hast sent Me" (John xvii. 21). 
How can the world be convinced by a unity which they 
cannot see ? The antithesis of unity is schism, or divis- 
ion, which is an outward and visible thing. There never 
has been, nor can be, any division in the ideal body of 
the elect, which is known only to God. "A schism 
which cannot be perceived is no schism ; and the moment 
you render it perceptible, you are in a visible church." x 
The visible Church, therefore, is the one body of Christ, 
in which Christ prays and Paul exhorts that there may 
be no divisions. 

What constitutes this visible Church one body ? 
The question is twofold. It may refer to the life, or 
to the organization in which that life is incorporated. 
A clay model, or even a marble statue, however ex- 
press and admirable, is not a human body. Man 
formed of the dust of the earth did not become a 
living being till God breathed into his nostrils the 
breath of life. A corpse is not a human body, in the 
full sense of the word. No sooner does the life leave 
the earthly house of this tabernacle than it begins to 
dissolve. The analogy between the human body and 
the Church, the body of Christ, is complete. The Holy 
Spirit, given to the visible Church at her inauguration 
on the day of Pentecost as a permanent endowment, is 
admitted on all sides to be her life and the vital bond 
of her unity. By this gift God does not limit Himself 
to her agency, but He guarantees her continued life as 
a Divine institution in the world, and her ultimate 
1 Mason, Works, ii. 287. 



THE UNITY OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 51 

attainment of the ends for which she was established. 
What then is the organization, or, if we may so speak, 
the anatomy of the body in which the Holy Spirit 
dwells ? This is a question of great importance, and 
we desire to answer it explicitly. Our inquiry is not 
concerning the outward garments in which men have 
arrayed her, some of which are "beautiful" (Isaiah lii. 
1), and others more fit for a harlot than for the Bride 
of Christ. But stripped of all human additions, whether 
lawful or unlawful, what is the Divine constitution of 
the visible Church ? 

We say, first of all, that the adoption of a formulated 
creed or confession is no part of that constitution. This, 
of course, is not intended to deny the lawfulness, nor 
even the necessity, of creeds under existing circumstances. 
We only say that creeds or confessions, in the technical 
sense of the words, are no part of the Divine constitution 
of the visible Church, and therefore not essential to her 
unity. The conclusive proof of this position is the fact 
that for more than three hundred years after her estab- 
lishment the Christian Church had no creed beside the 
simple and ever-varying confession of Christ connected 
with the sacrament of baptism. The Church under the 
Old Testament never had any creed aside from the Word 
of God, nor is any express warrant for creeds found in 
the New Testament Scriptures. To make " the form of 
sound words " or " the faith once delivered to the saints" 
synonymous with any denominational confession, is a 
monstrous usurpation. 

We say, secondly, that no particular form of church 
government is essential to the existence and unity of 
the visible Church. The proof of this position is that, 
aside from certain great principles, no definite form of 
church government is laid down in the Word of God. 



52 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

On this point we agree most heartily with Dr. Charles 
Hodo-e : — 

o 

" The Church is to be governed by principles laid down in 
the Word of God, which determine within certain limits her 
officers and mode of organization ; but beyond these pre- 
scribed principles, and in fidelity to them, the Church has a 
wide discretion in the choice of methods, organs, and agencies. 
. . . Christ in His infinite wisdom has left His Church free to 
modify her government, in accordance with these general 
principles, as may best suit her circumstances in different 
ages and nations." * 

As there is no definite form of church government 
prescribed in the precepts of Christ, neither is there any 
enacted in the example of the Apostles. The plain fact 
is, that the Apostles did not follow the same plan at all 
times. They varied the organization of churches to suit 
different places and occasions. No man can deduce any 
of the existing forms of church government in their de- 
tailed arrangements, or even in their distinctive features, 
from the facts recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, nor 
from the precepts given in the Epistles ; and the wisest 
expositors have given up the hopeless attempt. There 
is nothing in the New Testament to prove the primacy 
of Peter, whom Paul withstood to the face. Even if 
we recognize in James the diocesan bishop of Jeru- 
salem, there was certainly no such bishop in the 
church at Ephesus when Paul told the elders of that 
church that the Holy Ghost had made them the epis- 
copoi (which the Eevised Version properly renders the 
bishops) of that flock. Moreover, it is not possible to 
show that among these presbyter bishops at Ephesus, or 
among "the prophets and teachers" at Antioch (Acts 
xiii. 1), or among the "bishops and deacons" at Philippi 

1 Hodge's Polity, p. 277. 



THE UNITY OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 53 

(Phil. i. 1), there ever were what we call "ruling 
elders." 1 

We say, thirdly, that the organization and unity of the 
visible Church does not consist in nor depend upon any 
prescribed and uniform mode of worship. The elements 
of worship are prescribed, but not the form. The preach- 
ing of the Gospel, the reading of the Scriptures, prayer, 
the singing of Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, 
the administration of the sacraments, and the offering of 

1 The claim which the Presbyterian standards make for the ruling 
eldership as an integral part of church government, is very mod- 
erate. The Form of Government (chap, iv.) says: "Ruling elders 
are properly the representatives of the people, chosen by them for the 
purpose of exercising government and discipline in conjunction with 
pastors or ministers. This office has been understood by a great 
part of the Protestant Reformed churches to be designated, in the 
Holy Scriptures, by the title of governments and of those who rule 
well but do not labor in word and doctrine." The Puritan doctrine 
as laid down by Thomas Cartwright (in his "Ecclesiastical Discipline"), 
"that nothing ought to be established in the Church which is not 
commanded in the Word of God," has been practically abandoned by 
all denominations of Christians. The interpretation of 1 Tim. v. 17, 
which makes it prove " that there was in the Apostles' days a formal 
distinction among those who bore the common name of presbyter, — 
that some were set apart to the work of both teaching and ruling, 
and others to that simply of ruling, — is certainly not expressly said, 
and has often been disputed as well by Presbyterian and Independent 
writers as by Roman Catholics and Episcopalians " (Fairbairn's 
Pastoral Epistles, p. 213). Ruling elders "are properly represen- 
tatives of the people." This is their peculiar function. And the 
authority for their appointment is the divine right of the people, as 
distinguished from the ministry, to participate in the government of 
the Church, and their discretionary power to choose their own repre- 
sentatives. (See Hodge's Polity, p. 262.) The recognition of this 
right is no longer, if it ever was, a distinctive feature of Presbyterian- 
ism. Congregatioualists and Baptists always acknowledged it prac- 
tically, and Methodists and Episcopalians have incorporated lay- 
representation into their forms of government. 



54 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

gifts, — these are all warranted and enjoined in Scrip- 
ture. But the form under which these are to be observed 
or administered is left discretionary. The Puritan 
principle, that nothing is to be permitted in our worship 
which is not expressly commanded or sanctioned in 
Scripture, is itself contrary to both the examples and 
the precepts of Scripture ; there is not a body of Chris- 
tians on earth who have not violated it ; and the attempt 
of the different denominations to justify their forms and 
ceremonies — or even their professed lack of forms, which 
often covers the most rigid formality — by an appeal to 
the Word of God, leads to a continual wresting of the 
Scriptures, which brings them into contempt. 1 

If the organization and unity of the visible Church 
does not consist in the adoption of creeds, nor in forms 
of government, nor in modes of worship, wherein does 

1 There has been a remarkable change during the past fifty years 
in all non-liturgical denominations in regard to forms of worship. 
This change is very marked among Presbyterians. The Directory 
for Worship is advisory rather than obligatory. Ministers and 
elders are not required to adopt nor to approve it. In its recommen- 
dations it concedes a large liberty as to the forms of worship, and in 
our day this liberty is being largely used. Fifty years ago the use 
of the Apostles' Creed and the responsive reading of the Psalms was 
unheard of, and would not have been tolerated in any of our churches; 
and even the occasional use of the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Com- 
mandments in our public assemblies was looked upon with disfavor. 
But a change has come noiselessly but manifestly, as the outbreak of 
the foliage in the spring. This change began in our Sunday-schools. 
We have trained a generation to the use of simple liturgical forms, 
and the logical result has followed. We must reform our Sunday- 
schools after the prevailing customs of fifty years ago, or we must 
disown our own children at the church door, and send them elsewhere 
for the gratification of tastes we have cultivated in them, or, as the 
only remaining alternative, we must continue in the course upon 
which we have entered, and give the people some audible share in 
our public worship. 



THE UNITY OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 55 

it consist ? What constitutes all those throughout 
the world who profess the true religion, the one Body 
of Christ ? We answer that four things are essential 
to the organization and life of a particular church ; and 
the same things are equally characteristic and efficient 
in the Holy Catholic Church, of which every particular 
church is the miniature and the type: (1) The Con- 
fession of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Saviour 
of men, and the Supreme Head of the Church. 1 (2) A 
living ministry, called of God's Spirit, and ordained to 
their work according to His appointment. (3) The 
faithful preaching of the Gospel. (4) The due admin- 
istration of the sacraments. 2 This statement is but the 

1 Sufficient emphasis has not been laid upon the confession of 
Christ as a formative and unifying principle of the Church. Peter's 
confession, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," 
secured Christ's " Blessed art thou, Peter, and on this rock I will 
build my Church" (Matt. xvi. 18). Neither the benediction nor 
the promise is confined to Peter. "Whosoever shall confess me 
before men, him will I also confess before my Father in heaven " 
(Matt. x. 32). "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord 
Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, 
thou shalt be saved" (Rom. x. 9). " Whosoever shall confess that 
Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God" 
(1 John iv. 15). 

Such confession not only conditions the acceptance of the indi- 
vidual with God, but unites the confessors in a community before 
the world. 

2 There is no essential difference between the definitions of the 
visible Church given by Christians of all denominations, except that 
which relates to the supremacy of the Pope. Bellarmine, the great 
Roman Catholic authority, says, " The Church is the society of men 
united by the profession of the same faith, and the communion of 
the same sacraments, under the government of legitimate pastors, 
and especially of the only vicar of Christ on earth, the Roman 
Pontiff" (Bellarmine, On the Church, book iii. chap. 2). 

Strike out the clause relating to the Pope, and what remains is 



56 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

analysis and expression in another form of what Paul 
teaches in the fourth chapter of his Epistle to the 
Ephesians, " There is one body, and one Spirit." It is 
the indwelling and power of the Spirit that makes and 
keeps the body one ; but that oneness is wrought out 
and made visible by the acknowledgment and possession 
of " one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one Divinely 
given ministry." 1 If it be objected to this statement 
that it excludes from the visible Church some who, like 
the Quakers, profess Christianity, and yet reject the 
ministry and the sacraments, we answer, that their pro- 
fession is incomplete. As interpreted by themselves, it 
denies not only the lawfulness of an ordained ministry 

accepted by all Christians who believe in any Church. "The 
Church is the whole society of Christians throughout the world, 
including all those who profess their belief in Christ, and who are 
subject to lawful pastors " (Palmer, On the Church, i. 28). 

To this corresponds the definition of the Thirty-nine Articles: 
" The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in 
which the pure Word of God is preached, and the sacraments be duly 
administered according to Christ's ordinance in all those things 
that of necessity are requisite to the same " (Art, 19). 

The Westminster Confession teaches precisely the same thing 
when it says : " The Catholic visible Church consists of all those 
throughout the world who profess the true religion, together with 
their children " (chap. xxv. 21) ; for it teaches also that the pro- 
fession of the true religion includes the observance of the sacra- 
ments and submission to lawful pastors. The question at issue 
between the Episcopalians and other denominations, as between 
them and the Roman Catholics, is, Who are lawful pastors, and what 
constitutes the due administration of the sacraments ? 

1 The same elements appear in the analysis of the great com- 
mission (Matt, xxviii. 19). " All power is given unto Me in heaven 
and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach [disciple] all nations, 
baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost : teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
manded you : and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the 



THE UNITY OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 57 

and of the administration of the sacraments, but the 
very existence of any such body as the visible Catholic 
Church. They do not claim to be members of it. Why 
should we force upon them names and privileges which 
they repudiate, especially when we freely admit that 
their exclusion from the visible Church does not shut 
them out from the Church of the first-born which are 
written in heaven ? 

We come now to the practical question, how far these 
views correspond with the existing state of things. Is 
the Church one in fact, as it is in our theory ? And if 
not, which is wrong, the facts, or the theory ? Whether 
what is commonly understood by "organic union" — 
i. e. } the consolidation of all Christian denominations 
in the world, or in any particular country, under one 
statement of doctrine and one administration of govern- 
ment — will ever be practicable, we are not competent 
to say. It is enough to observe that it is not practicable 
now. Such a consolidation has been the dream of the 
Church of Eome for fifteen centuries. The attempt to 
enforce her exclusive claims has produced little more 
than schism, strife, and bloodshed. She stands to-day 
stripped of her temporal power, simply as one of the 
denominations of Christendom. She is not in fact the 

world." Here we have the sacraments, the preaching of the Gos- 
pel, the Divinely ordained ministry, and the confession of Christ's 
supremacy, necessarily involved in the acceptance of the ministry 
and sacraments. The same elements are apparent in the descrip- 
tion of the infant Church in Acts ii. 41, 42. " Then they that 
gladly received the Word were baptized : and the same day there were 
added [to what ? To the Church, v. 47] about three thousand souls. 
And they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellow- 
ship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers." The Greek has the 
article, and ought to be translated " the bread," and " the prayers," 
which plainly means the holy communion and public worship. 



58 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

Catholic Church. " Catholic Rome" says Bishop Hall, 
" is an absurd Montanistic solecism, au attempt to find 
orbem in urbe." She is herself largely responsible for 
the existing divisions of Christendom, and for their 
bitter fruits. She made the schism of the Eeformation 
(if it was a schism) , not only by refusing to reform 
abuses which the best of her own adherents recognized, 
but by casting out and anathematizing those who would 
gladly have remained in her communion. Luther did 
not excommunicate the Pope till the Pope had excom- 
municated him. She cultivates and scatters broadcast 
the wrath and bitterness which are the worst fruits of 
schism, by her denunciation of all who do not acknowl- 
edge her authority as above the authority of God speak- 
ing in the Holy Scriptures. In her attitude towards 
Christians outside of her fold she covers herself with 
curses as with a garment. Jesus Christ came not to 
condemn the world, but that the world through Him 
might be saved. The Roman hierarchy, claiming to be 
His sole representative on earth, condemns to eternal 
death all who do not submit to its authority. In the 
decrees of the Council of Trent, Anathema sit (Let him 
be damned) is applied to the rejection of more than 
three hundred points of belief, most of which are 
utterly without warrant of Scripture. God has not 
committed such judgment to men. It is not the pre- 
rogative of any man or church to excommunicate any 
one from heaven, nor to pronounce upon any the awful 
sentence of damnation. 

The Puritan dream of a visible church on earth com- 
posed only of the elect and the regenerated, begets a 
new Popery scarce less offensive than the old. In its 
attempts to gather up the tares it roots up the wheat 
also, and when it is in league with the secular power, 
leads inevitably to persecution. 



THE UNITY OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 59 

The fires of Smithfield and the flames that burned 
Servetus were kindled by the same torch. The Act of 
Conformity, by which in 1662 thousands of Presby- 
terian and Congregational ministers were expelled from 
the English churches, was but a repetition of the same 
treatment Episcopalian ministers had received from the 
Presbyterian Parliament under "the humble advice" 
of the Westminster Assembly. The divines of the 
seventeenth century all believed in the enforcement of 
Church government and worship by the State. They all 
held that religious toleration was a damnable heresy; 
and the only question at issue between them at this 
point was who should get possession of the whip of 
small cords and drive all the others out. Let us thank 
God that we live in a more enlightened age, when " the 
right of private judgment in all matters that respect 
religion " is recognized by all Protestant Christians " as 
universal and unalienable." x And let us carry out the 
same principle in the doctrine and discipline of the 
Church itself. The function of the Church is purely 
ministerial and declarative. She has no right to make 
any new law to bind men's consciences ; she has no 
right to make anything a term of communion which 
God has not declared in His Word to be a term of sal- 
vation ; and in the application of these terms to indi- 
viduals, she can only accept their credible professions, 
without pretending to judge their hearts. If the anath- 
emas of the Council of Trent are revolting in their 
usurpation of Divine prerogatives and their lack of the 
loving spirit of Christ, no less revolting are the rash 
judgments of individuals or of ecclesiastical assemblies, 
making every difference of opinion a heresy, and every 
deviation from a humanly prescribed ritual a ground of 
1 Presbyterian Form of Government, chap. i. sect. 1. 



60 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

exclusion from the Church. Dr. Alexander Hodge said 
in one of his last public utterances, " there is nothing 
more outrageously vulgar and profane than the coarse 
and careless shouting out of threats of damnation 
against heedless sinners by an orthodox ranter. " 1 

There may be nothing more vulgar and profane, but 
there is something more presumptuous and inconsistent 
with the unity of Christ's Body, when a minister of 
Christ exalts his sect into the Church, sneers at all 
worship which is not offered under its forms, and 
denies the validity of all sacraments which are not 
administered according to its orders. How far this 
intolerant spirit is the legitimate fruit of the existing 
divisions of Christendom, and how far these divisions 
are the outgrowth of such a spirit, is a problem we are 
not competent to solve. But the question whether the 
organization of Christians under different and rival 
forms of government, confessions of faith, and modes 
of worship, can be justified by Scripture or by the prac- 
tical workings of the system, presses for an answer 
upon every thoughtful Christian soul. It is the ques- 
tion of our time, rising above all past theological and 
ecclesiastical controversies. Does the Scripture recog- 
nition of Christian congregations in particular neighbor- 
hoods as churches, and the further recognition of the 
whole body of such churches in one city or country as 
the Church of that city or country, justify the organiza- 
tion of denominational churches on the principle of 
elective affinity ? Are elective affinity and local con- 
venience only different applications of the same prin- 
ciple ? The best possible argument in the affirmative 
of this question is presented by Dr. Charles Hodge. 
Starting with the postulate that "there is nothing in 
1 Popular Lectures on Theological Themes, p. 446. 



THE UNITY OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 61 

independent organization, in itself considered, incon- 
sistent with unity, so long as common faith is professed 
and mutual recognition preserved," he proceeds to show 
that the Episcopal Church in England and in this coun- 
try are one, and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and 
in this country are one, notwithstanding their separate 
organizations ; and all that is needed to make the Epis- 
copal and Presbyterian churches in Great Britain and the 
United States one, is their mutual recognition." From 
these premises he proceeds to argue that if independent 
organization, on account of different locality or civil rela- 
tions, is compatible with unity, so also is independent 
organization on account of diversity of language or di- 
versity of opinion, provided such diversity does not 
violate unity of faith. " Diversity of opinion is indeed 
an evidence of imperfection, and therefore such separa- 
tions are evil, so far as they are evidence of want of 
perfect unity in faith; but they are less evil than 
hypocrisy or contention, and therefore the diversity of 
sects is to be regarded as incident to imperfect knowl- 
edge and imperfect sanctification. It is to be deplored ; 
yet the evil is not to be magnified above its just dimen- 
sions." 1 And this is all that can be said in defence of 
existing denominationalism. The proviso of "mutual 
recognition," which conditions the whole argument, is 
sadly wanting in practical fulfilment. Nor can it be 
denied that the unity of faith, though it be not de- 
stroyed, is greatly obscured by the magnifying of minor 
differences. The proposition that diversity of sects is 
" a less evil than hypocrisy and contention," is undeni- 
able ; but is not this choice between evils a sorry 
defence for the Christian Church ? Would it not be 
better to choose neither ? The conclusion is irresist- 
1 Hodge's Polity of the Church, p. 43. 



62 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

ible that denominationalism is an evil to be deplored. 
But do we deplore it as we should ? Do we not rather 
glory in it ? A living Princeton divine said recently in 
private conversation, "Denominations are an advertise- 
ment of universal ignorance." The words were well 
chosen. It is not a confession, but an advertisement of 
ignorance ; and the ignorance is not of that kind which 
humbles, and is sometimes supposed to be the mother 
of devotion. It is rather that half knowledge which 
perverts vision, puffs up and behaves itself unseemly. 
Every Christian, and especially every minister, ought to 
look the existing facts squarely in the face. To do this 
we must cease our self-eulogies, the undue magnifying 
of human systems, and the worship that is paid at 
sepulchres full of dead men's bones. We must assume 
a position above traditional prejudices, controversies, 
and resentments. We must imbue our minds with the 
essential facts and principles of the Gospel, with the per- 
ishing need of the world, with the great commission of 
the Church to go and preach the Gospel to every creature. 
We must put the name of Christ above every name. 

Paul speaks to the whole Christian Church as he did 
to the saints at Corinth : " Now this I say, that every 
one of you saith, I am of Paul ; and I of Apollos ; and I of 
Cephas ; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided ? was Paul 
crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of 
Paul ? " Which being interpreted, means, " Every one of 
you saith I am of John Calvin, I am of Martin Luther, I 
am of Arminius, I am of Cranmer, I am of Augustine, I 
am of Cyprian, I am of all the Fathers, I am of Peter, the 
first of the Popes. Were any of these crucified for you, 
or were ye baptized in their name ? " Laying aside all 
theories, look at the concrete facts as they exist before 
our eyes. We cannot take in the world at one view ; 



THE UNITY OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 63 

let us look at a single locality as the type of the whole. 
Here is a town, not a hundred miles away from any of 
us. It has one thousand inhabitants, or about two hun- 
dred families, — just enough to make one self-support- 
ing church, able # to sustain its minister and contribute 
to the sending of the Gospel to the unevangelized. But 
instead of one such church, it has five sickly organiza- 
tions, with as many half-starved and discontented min- 
isters, sustained in whole or in part by aid from some 
Missionary Board. One of these churches has a steeple 
surmounted with the cross, — the common symbol of 
Christianity. The others, if they have steeples at all, 
have crowned them with a weather-cock. All these 
churches claim to be Christian ; but they all bear de- 
nominational names, and each is a rival of the others. 
Now, the evil of this state of things does not consist 
only nor chiefly in its waste of Christian resources, but 
the chief evil is its demoralizing effect upon religious 
experience and Christian character. It narrows men's 
souls by concentrating on a sect the sympathies and 
affections which ought to expand upon the whole body 
of Christ ; and this effect is the most shrivelling when 
men succeed in deluding themselves into the belief that 
their sect is the body of Christ. It creates false tests 
and standards of personal piety. It mars the symmet- 
rical growth of the soul in the knowledge of Christ, by 
magnifying certain doctrines to the neglect or denial of 
others. The notion that it is the mission of different 
denominations to bear witness to particular phases of 
Divine truth, might be well enough if the people to 
whom this witness is borne were brought under the in- 
fluence of all the witnesses. But to subject one Chris- 
tian to the teaching of Divine Sovereignty, and another 
to the insistence upon human freedom, cultivates two 



64 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

different types of character, neither of which is accord- 
ing to the truth. The idea of a " witness-bearing^ 
church/' — that is, a body of Christians with a special 
Divine commission to bear testimony against other 
bodies of Christians, while it is pleaded in defence of 
denominationalism, is in fact one of the worst fruits 
of the system. The effect of the system upon the sac- 
raments is no less to be deplored. It obscures the true 
meaning of these holy ordinances by contracting the 
table of the Lord to the close communion of a party 
in His Church, and by making baptism the badge of a 
sect ; so that one says, " I was baptized an Episco- 
palian" and another, " I was baptized a Presbyterian" 
and another, " I was baptized a Baptist" The effect of 
denominationalism upon the ministry is no less deplor- 
able. It too often degrades the servant and ambassador 
of Christ into the hired man of a voluntary association, 
and suspends his reputation and influence upon his suc- 
cess in making proselytes from other " societies." That 
minister must be a strong man who, in adjusting his 
work to such conditions, does not lose somewhat of the 
spirit of his high commission, and shrivel his own mind 
to the dimensions of a Gossip} 

These evils are greatly aggravated by their compli- 
cation with social distinctions and family pride. De- 
nominational lines, in such communities as we have 
described, are very apt to follow the lines of class dis- 
tinctions and to deepen them with "the Gospel plough." 
Eeligious societies become social clubs, and get rid of 
the question about seating the poor man in vile raiment 

1 " Gossip " is an ecclesiastical term, — a corruption of " Godsib." 
It was first applied to sponsors in baptism ; and its development into 
its present popular use is not without historic significance. See 
Brewer's "Dictionary of Phrase and Table." 



THE UNITY OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 65 

by making it practically certain that he will not come 
into the same assembly with the man in goodly apparel 
and a gold ring. " The Salvation Army," or any other 
outside effort, is good enough for him. And so we look 
with complacency upon the spasmodic movements of 
zeal without knowledge, and even patronize them from 
a distance, as a salvo to our conscience, not perceiving 
that the plea for their necessity, and indeed fact of 
their existence, is a standing reproach to the Church. 
What wonder, if in this state of things one half of our 
settled ministers in all denominations are unsettled in 
their minds, and waiting for " a call ! " What wonder 
if the doors of vacant churches are besieged by an army 
of candidates, composed not only of young men who 
are openly looking for their first charge, but largely of 
old soldiers, some of whom by unworthy devices con- 
ceal the fact of their candidacy ! Surely, if we need a 
civil service reform in the State, there is no less need 
of a pastoral service reform in the Church. And this 
reform, to be effective, must begin at the denomina- 
tionalism which fills the land with feeble churches and 
half-supported ministers, and wastes in sectarian rival- 
ries what ought to go to the evangelizing of the world. 

The first and most important step towards the cor- 
rection of any evil is to see and acknowledge its exist- 
ence; and the second is like unto it, — an earnest 
desire for a better state of things. The unity of 
Christendom — a unity that the world can see, and be 
convinced by it that the Father has sent His only be- 
gotten Son — is to-day a longing in the heart and a 
prayer on the lips of multitudes of Christians. We hail 
every expression of such desire as a prophecy of its 
fulfilment, according to others the same sincerity we 
claim for ourselves. We do not sympathize with those 

5 



66 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

who view with squint suspicion the proposals for re- 
union by the American Episcopal Church indorsed by 
the Lambeth Conference ; and while we cannot accept 
the terms proposed, in their present form, as sufficient 
and practicable, we do heartily embrace and respond to 
their spirit. The reunion of Christendom is a sublime 
idea, an inspiring hope. It is not necessary to the in- 
dulgence of this hope to forecast the precise form of its 
fulfilment ; and therefore we need not exclude from its 
embrace any of those throughout the world who profess 
the true religion. The best things in the world are not 
made, they grow. The unification of Christendom, as 
a whole or in part, cannot be accomplished by bargains 
and contracts between rival sects. Neither can it be 
effected by the absorption of one denomination under 
the distinctive forms of another. The Romanist may 
cry, "Lay aside your private judgment and submit to 
the infallible Pope;" the Episcopalian may say, "Come 
and be ordained by our bishops ; " the Baptist may say, 
" Come and be immersed ; " the Presbyterian may say, 
" We acknowledge the validity of your orders and sacra- 
ments, only accept our Calvinism, and we will be one;" 
and the Methodist may respond, " Give up your Calvin- 
ism, and accept our doctrine of free grace." But what 
do all these invitations amount to ? They cannot be 
accepted. Men cannot and ought not to renounce their 
personal convictions of truth. If you should dissolve 
all Christian denominations to-day, it would create, not 
union, but anarchy. If you should renounce all creeds, 
the result would be, not a broader faith, but a confusion 
of tongues. Is there then no practicable way in which 
we may work towards the fulfilment of our hopes ? Yes, 
certainly. We can hold to our distinctive forms, whether 
of discipline or of worship ; but we can hold the form 



THE UNITY OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 67 

in subordination to the substance. We can hold our 
distinctive creeds until the time comes when they can 
be safely laid aside, meanwhile recognizing Christ, the 
Incarnate Word, as above all written words, human or 
Divine, the confession of faith in Him as above all 
creed subscriptions, and the. Catholic Church, which is 
His Body, as above all Christian denominations. If 
these principles are accepted, not In word only, but in 
power, their dominance will show itself. There are 
three directions in which they may work themselves 
out gradually, but mightily, like the clawniug of the day, 
— Kecognition, Co-operation, and Federation. 

1. Recognition. The Church of Eome is the only 
Christian denomination which officially claims to be the 
Church in any exclusive sense ; 1 and this claim, coupled 
with her denial of any distinction between the Church 
as visible and invisible, necessarily precludes the church- 
standing, the Christian character, and the salvation of 
all who do not acknowledge her authority and partici- 
pate in her sacraments. In this she is terribly logical 
and consistent. But what is to hinder any and all Prot- 
estant denominations from acknowledging each other 
individually and collectively as belonging to the Church 
of Christ, and treating each other accordingly ? Theo- 

1 Some Episcopalians constantly speak of their own denomina- 
tion as " the Church," and studiously avoid giving that name to any 
other denomination. The folly of this assumption is sufficiently 
declared by the title of their own Prayer-Book, which is " The Book 
of Common Prayer of the Protestant Episcopal Church in The United 
States of America." And the significance of this title is empha- 
sized by the recent refusal of their Convention to strike out the 
words Protestant Episcopal. Whatever may be true of individuals, 
our Episcopal brethren as a body do not officially claim to be the 
Church in any exclusive sense ; for which we are glad, for their sake 
more than for our own. 



68 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

retically, and aside from the sectarian spirit of which 
we are all more or less guilty, there are only two obsta- 
cles in the way, — the mode of baptism, and the mode of 
ordination to the ministry. 1 But that these are not in- 
superable obstacles to mutual recognition, is evident ; 
because upon the supposition that the validity of the 
sacraments depends upon the specific mode of their 
administration, and the authority of the ministry to 
administer them, and their consequent efficacy, depends 
upon a particular mode of ordination to the ministry, — 
it is not credible that Christ and His Apostles should 
fail to leave on record specific instructions which would 
prevent the possibility of mistake upon the subject. 
It may not be possible even for God to state an abstract 
doctrine in human language so that all human minds 
will apprehend it alike ; but there is no such difficulty 
in the way of describing an act to be performed by 
human hands. If Christ was immersed Himself, and 
meant all His disciples to follow His example in this 
respect, and if immersion is essential to the validity 

1 It is a mistake to suppose that the causes of division and the 
obstacles of unity among Christians are mainly doctrinal. " It is 
clear, from the history of the Church, that diversity as to forms of 
church government or matters connected with worship and discip- 
line, more than differences about doctrine, has been the cause of ex- 
isting divisions in the Church. . . . Differences as to doctrine do not 
form such insuperable barriers to church union as diversity of 
opinion respecting ecclesiastical government. The creed of a church 
may be so general, embracing only the fundamental doctrines of the 
Gospel, such as can be professed with a good conscience by all true 
Christians, and thus ministers and members who differ widely within 
those limits may unite in one ecclesiastical organization. It is no- 
torious that great differences of doctrine prevail in all large churches, 
as in the Church of England and in the Church of Scotland, and in 
this country in the Episcopal Church, and in less degree, perhaps, 
among Presbyterians" (Hodge, Church Polity, 95, 96). 



THE UNITY OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 69 

of baptism, why did he not say so ? Why is it not 
so written in explicit terms ? If any one answers, " He 
did say so, and it is so written," we respond, "We 
cannot see it." And the fact that millions of the ho- 
liest and wisest men in all the Christian ages, whose 
candor and love of truth are beyond question, have 
not been able to see it, is proof conclusive that it is 
not there. The same observations apply to ordination 
to the ministry. If Paul and the other Apostles be- 
lieved that no ordination is valid unless it be performed 
by the hands of a diocesan bishop, distinct from and 
superior in office to ordinary ministers, and that the 
succession of such ordinations is essential to the exist- 
ence of the visible Church and to the efficacy of her 
sacraments, why did they not say so, and record the 
doctrine in explicit terms, for the instruction of all 
ages ? The fact that men equally learned and honest 
differ on the subject, is proof conclusive that there is 
no such record. When our Episcopal brethren, in their 
overture for reunion, insist npon the historic, meaning 
the diocesan, episcopate as equally essential with the 
Holy Scriptures and the holy sacraments, we remind 
them that there is a pre-historic episcopate which is not 
diocesan, and that by their own acknowledgment what 
they call the historic episcopate is not explicitly en- 
joined in the Scriptures, which "contain all things 
necessary to salvation, and are the rule and ultimate 
standard of faith." Oh, is it not pitiful in the sight of 
God and angels that the mere mode of administering 
two outward ordinances, concerning which He has given 
no explicit instructions, should be magnified into par- 
tition-walls between His disciples for whom He prays 
that they all may be one ! And the pity becomes more 
profound when we consider the fact that these two 



70 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

obstacles have not always and everywhere been regarded 
as insurmountable. It is only in this country that the 
Baptist denomination make their mode of baptism a war- 
rant for " close communion." It is only since the days 
of Charles I. and his prime minister, Archbishop Laud, 
that the Episcopal denomination have refused to recog- 
nize the validity of other ordinations beside their own. 

We shall be reminded that now and here these par- 
tition-walls are not so high as to prevent the different 
denominations from looking over them., and mutually 
recognizing each other as Christians. We admit this, 
and rejoice in the growing spirit of inter-denomina- 
tional comity which is so characteristic of our times. 
But it is the unity of the visible Church that we are 
contending for. We long for church recognition as the 
only legitimate and permanent embodiment of Chris- 
tian fellowship. Mutual recognition, aside from the 
organic life and work of the churches, performed as a 
holiday parade, and upon platforms erected for that 
special purpose, is little more than a confession of the 
evils of denominationalism ; it does not apply any prac- 
tical remedy. Sweet and pleasant in itself, it is only a 
sentiment, and unless it is embodied in deeds, it will 
evaporate in the words that express it. If it goes no 
farther, its practical effect is to disparage the Church 
and to alienate thinking men from her life and her 
work. What we need is such a mutual recognition as 
will lead to co-operation. 

2. And this co-operation must be within, and not 
outside of, the visible Church. We do not undertake to 
forecast its methods, but we have a very distinct pre- 
vision of its results. First of all, it will prevent the 
needless multiplication of churches, and the waste of 
Christian means and energies in particular localities. 



THE UNITY OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 71 

Secondly, it will elevate the ministry, and cultivate a 
nobler type of Christian character, by laying aside petty 
rivalries and strifes about words and forms of worship 
whose only effect is the perversion of the hearers, and 
by insisting upon the great central facts and doctrines 
of Christianity. Thirdly, it will add immense resources 
and give a new impulse to the missionary work of the 
Church, which is the chief object of her existence, and 
it will give new efficacy to that work by presenting a 
united front and lifting up high above all sectarian 
colors the common banner of Christianity before the 
heathen w^orld. 

3. As both an expression and a practical means of 
promoting this recognition and co-operation, we are 
heartily in favor of federation between any and all 
denominations of Christians. 

One thing seems clear, — that the unification of the 
Church cannot be accomplished by one denomination 
working upon another from without. Proselytism, 
whether by argument or persuasion, is a waste of time 
and strength. The converts made by such means are 
far fetched and little worth. Neither, again, can the 
denominations be unified by any power separate from 
and above them all. The wrecks of that experiment 
are scattered along the whole path of history. The 
time for world-empires, whether of the Church or the 
State, is past. The unity of the Church can be effected 
only by a vital power dwelling in every part and common 
to all. That power can be none other than the Holy 
Spirit. But the Spirit of God, in nature and in grace, 
works by means. Cosmos, "the beautiful order," was not 
imposed upon, but evolved out of, Chaos. The Spirit, 

" with mighty wings outspread, 
Dovelike, sat brooding on the vast abyss, 
And made it pregnant." 



72 THE MINISTKY AND SACRAMENTS. 

The earth and the waters brought forth abundantly. 
The unification of Christian denominations must be 
attained by bringing out into clearer recognition and 
adjusting to new relations that which is already in 
them. The first stage in the process is the practical 
acknowledgment that the things in which they agree, 
whether in doctrine, discipline, or worship, are not only 
more important in their bearing, but more and greater 
in themselves, than the things in which they differ. 

The conviction of this truth comes home to every 
candid mind in the careful study of the creeds of 
Christendom. But the thought of theologians and 
scholars needs to be embodied in a visible form, in 
order to be apprehended by the popular mind. What 
more simple or safe embodiment of the idea can be in- 
vented than the federation of Christian denominations ? 
The possibilities of such federation are unlimited. It 
does not involve the surrender of sectarian peculiarities, 
but simply the subordination of them for a time to that 
which is confessedly higher and more important. Under 
any plan which may be adopted it will have this great 
advantage, that practice will go hand in hand with 
theory, and the experiment reach no farther than expe- 
rience shall warrant. Beginning on a small scale, and 
embracing at first only the subdivisions of sects holding 
the same system of doctrine and order, and separated 
by distinctions as small as the difference between a 
psalm and a hymn, or between the sound of a pitch- 
pipe and the swell of an organ, who shall say that it 
will not enlarge its circumference and intensify its as- 
similating power until it includes the Christian world 
in its embrace ? It is easy to sit in the seat of the 
polemic, surmising difficulties and predicting failure; 
but it is far nobler to hope for and hasten unto the 



THE UNITY OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH. 73 

blessed time when out of many folds there shall be one 
flock and one Shepherd. The greatest living poet sang 
in his youth of a political millennium, — 

"When the war-drums throb no longer, and the battle-flags are 
furled 
In the parliament of men, the federation of the world j " 

and though the vision has not yet come to pass, who 
will say there has been no progress towards its fulfil- 
ment ? Behind and above all the kingdoms of the 
world is the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ. Of 
the increase of His government and peace there shall 
be no end. Who shall say how near may be the time 
when the isles which wait for His law shall hail the 
light of His coming, and the troubled sea, moaning on 
every shore, shall hear and be hushed at the stillness of 
His voice ? And above all, who will refuse to do what 
he can to prepare the way of the Lord ; to exalt every 
valley ; to make low every mountain ; to gather out the 
stones, and make smooth the rough places in the high- 
way of our God ? I am a Presbyterian, not only by 
birth, but by conviction, and yield to no man in loyalty 
to the denomination in whose service my life has been 
spent, and in whose bosom I hope to die. But I do not 
expect to be a Presbyterian, nor anything of the kind, in 
heaven. And as my sun grows larger and more mel- 
low towards its setting, I would gladly exchange every- 
thing that is not essentially Christian for a few of the 
days of heaven on earth in the unity and peace of the 
Church of God which He hath purchased with His own 
blood. 



LECTURE IV. 

THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OE INEANTS. 

CHUECH membership is the birthright of all who 
are born of Christian parents. This Christian 
birthright is recognized and confirmed in the baptism of 
infants. We say " the baptism of infants," not " infant " 
baptism ; because the latter phrase sanctions the popu- 
lar error that there are two kinds of baptism, and that 
the ordinance as administered to infants is not, in the 
full sense of the word, a sacrament, but only a cere- 
mony of consecration. We hold with Paul that there 
"is one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. iv. 5), — one 
in the correspondence between the outward sign and 
the inward meaning; one because it is not to be re- 
peated, since regeneration, which it signifies and seals, 
can be experienced only once; and one in the sense 
that it is indivisible, and cannot be lawfully adminis- 
tered except in the fulness of its significance, and to 
those who are fully qualified to receive it. Whatever 
right the Church may have to institute new ceremonies, 
she has no right to institute new sacraments, nor in 
anywise to alter or to modify the meaning of those 
Christ has ordained for all time. If the baptism of 
infants does not signify and seal " regeneration and en- 
grafting into Christ," in the same sense and to the same 
extent as in the case of adults, we have no right to 
administer it to infants. The practice of the Church is 
utterly indefensible upon any other ground. " Baptism 



THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OF INFANTS. 75 

is to be administered but once, with water, to be a sign 
and seal of our regeneration and engrafting into Christ, 
and that even to infants." * 

For similar reasons we reject also the phrase, " be- 
liever's baptism," on which the opponents of the bap- 
tism of infants so strenuously insist. If they quote the 
words of Christ, " he that believeth and is baptized shall 
be saved," we remind them that the salvation promised 
is as plainly conditioned upon believing as baptism is. 
Are they prepared to adopt the phrase, " believer's salva- 
tion," as covering the whole purpose of God in redemp- 
tion ? What then becomes of infants dying in infancy ? 
Does God bestow the reality upon those to whom He 
refuses the sign ? Our Baptist brethren — blessed be 
their inconsistency ! — believe in the salvation of infants 
as strenuously as we do. By this heart-faith, which is 
infinitely better than their exegesis or their logic, they 
accord to those who cannot consciously believe or pro- 
fess their faith, all that is symbolized by baptism ; for 
surely they will not affirm that an . infant can be saved 
without regeneration, — and yet, by an epithet which has 
no warrant in Scripture, they exclude these subjects of 
salvation from the outward ordinance. They dare not 
insist on believer's salvation, but they hold exclusively 
to believer's baptism. Surely the salvation is unspeak- 
ably greater than the baptism, which is only its outward 
sign and seal. The same Jesus who said, "Except a 
man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter 
into the kingdom of God," took infants into His arms 
and said, " Of such is the kingdom of God." 

I. Before presenting the argument for the Church 
membership of infants and their consequent right to the 
sacrament of baptism, it may be well briefly to review 
1 Larger Catechism, Q. 177. 



76 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

the history of the doctrine. From the days of the 
Apostles to the time of the Eeformation, and through 
the Eeformation period to the rise of the Baptist de- 
nomination in England, there is not in all Christian 
history or literature a line or a word of objection to the 
baptism of infants, upon grounds with vjJiich Evangelical 
Christians in our clay can have a particle of sympathy. 

In the beginning of the sixteenth century the Ana- 
baptists of Germany, whose political and theological 
excesses brought such disrepute upon the Eeformation 
under Luther, and against whom the great Eeformer 
labored with voice and pen, no less zealously than 
against the errors of Eome, opposed the baptism of 
infants upon the ground that they are by nature holy, 
and need neither regeneration nor the outward sign 
of it. 1 

In the beginning of the twelfth century there was a 
small and ephemeral sect among the Waldenses who 
rejected the baptism of infants. Their leader and 
founder, Eeter de Bruis, was addicted to that method of 
exegesis which consists in taking passages of Scripture 
addressed to a particular class of persons, and applying 

1 In the tenth article of the Formula of Concord, vre have a list 
of "Anabaptist articles which cannot be endured in the Church." 
Among these are the following : " That Christ did not assume His 
flesh and blood from the Yirgin Mary, but brought them from 
heaven ; that Christ is not true God, but merely superior to other 
saints, because He has received more gifts of the Holy Spirit than 
any other holy man ; that our righteousness before God does not 
consist in the merits of Christ alone ; that infants not baptized are 
not sinners before God, but pure and innocent, and in this their in- 
nocence, when they have not as yet the use of reason, may without 
baptism (of which in the opinion of the Anabaptists they have no 
need) attain unto salvation" (Schaff's Creeds of Christendom, 
iii. 174). 



THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OF INFANTS. 77 

them indiscriminately to all. He insisted that accord- 
ing to the precepts of Christ and His Apostles none can 
be saved but those who deny themselves, and take up 
the cross, and work out their own salvation with fear 
and trembling. From this he inferred that infants can- 
not be saved, and therefore ought not to be baptized. 
Certainly, if we grant his premises, his conclusions are 
irresistible. But who now will grant his premises ? 
The sect he founded had but a brief existence, and in 
the Waldensian Confession (1655) there is not a trace 
of his opinions. 

Going back in church history, we do not find another 
recorded word against the universal practice of baptiz- 
ing infants till we come to the writings of Tertullian. 
This eccentric and fanatical Father was bora A. D. 160, 
and died not later than A. D. 240. He was a distin- 
guished leader of the sect known in ecclesiastical his- 
tory as Montanists, and an eloquent advocate of their 
ascetic views and practices. Though married himself, 
he denounced marriage as inconsistent with the highest 
development of Christian life and character. In a trea- 
tise dedicated with grim humor to his wife, while com- 
bating the love of offspring as a plea for marriage, he 
speaks of " the bitter, bitter pleasure of children," and 
calls them "a burden perilous to faith." He asks: 
"Why did the Lord foretell a woe to them that are 
with child, and to them that give suck, except because 
He testifies that in that day of disencumbrance the en- 
cumbrances of children will be an inconvenience." He 
exclaims with bitter irony : " Let us marry daily, and 
in the midst of our marrying let us be overtaken, like 
Sodom and Gomorrha, by that day of fear." By the 
day of disencumbrance and the day of fear he seems to 
mean the second coming of Christ, which he believed to 



78 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

be near at hand, for he declares that " the unmarried at 
the first trump of the angel will spring forth disen- 
cumbered, will freely bear to the end whatever pressure 
and persecution, with no burdensome fruit of marriage 
heaving in the womb, none in the bosom." 1 

Tertullian is the author of the earliest extant trea- 
tise on Baptism. In this he earnestly advises against 
the administration of the sacrament to infants. His 
advice is based upon the assumption that baptism of 
itself washes away sins, and that sin committed after 
baptism is mortal, inasmuch as the cleansing ordinance 
cannot be repeated. For the same reason he recom- 
mends its postponement in the case of adults. He 
says : " If any understand the weighty import of bap- 
tism, they will fear its reception more than its delay." 2 

Now, without considering the grounds of his objec- 
tions, it is sufficient for our purpose to observe that 
Tertullian's arguments fully assume the prevalence of 
the baptism of infants in the Christian Church at the 
commencement of the third century. Many writers 
trace the evidences of the practice back to a much ear- 
lier date, to the writings of Irenseus, the disciple of 
Polycarp, the disciple of John the Apostle ; of Justin 
Martyr, at the beginning of the second century; and 
even of Clement of Eome and Hermas, who wrote in 
the last days of the Apostles. 3 

But we do not care to insist upon this evidence. We 
are willing to fortify the historic argument at the nar- 
row place where the first battery is erected against it. 
The fact and the mode of the attack concedes to us the 

1 Ante-Nicene Library: Tertullian's Works, i. 285. 

2 Tertullian's Works, i. 254. 

3 See Wall's History of Infant Baptism, and Bingham's Anti- 
quities of the Christian Church. 



THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OF INFANTS. 79 

whole territory between this point and the times of the 
Apostles. Tertullian virtually admits that the practice 
of the whole Church is and has been against him. He 
does not assert nor insinuate that this practice is an 
innovation. He makes no appeal from the usage of the 
Catholic Church to the authority of Christ and His 
Apostles, which he certainly would have done if there 
had been any ground for such an appeal. He pleads 
for the privilege of postponing baptism in the case of 
adults as well as of infants. "His arguments/' says 
Bingham, "tend not only to exclude infants, but all 
persons that are unmarried or in widowhood, for fear of 
temptation, — which are rules which no one beside him- 
self ever thought of, much less were they confirmed by 
any church practice." " His whole argument," says Dr. 
Schaff, " rests upon false premises, which were not ad- 
mitted by the Church. His protest fell without an 
echo." The universal prevalence of the baptism of 
infants, from the beginning of the third century onward, 
is proved by the clearest and most abundant evidence. 
Nor is there any lack of testimony as to the Divine 
origin and authority of the practice. Origen, who was 
contemporary with Tertullian, declares that the Church 
" derived an order from the Apostles to baptize infants," 
and that " according to the custom of the Church, bap- 
tism is administered to infants, who would not need the 
grace of baptism if there was nothing in them that 
needed forgiveness and mercy." 1 

Cyprian, in his Epistle to Fidus, affirms that in the 
Council of Carthage, A. D. 253, the sixty-six bishops or 
pastors present unanimously agreed that it is not neces- 
sary to postpone baptism till the eighth day, which was 

1 Our quotations from Origen, Chrysostom, Augustine, and Pe- 
lagius are taken from Wall's " History of Infant Baptism." 



80 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

the time fixed by the Mosaic law for circumcision, but 
that it might be administered at any time after birth, — 
which gives us a clear proof not only of the prevalence 
of the practice, but of the universal opinion in the 
Church that baptism, under the New Testament dis- 
pensation, takes the place of circumcision under the Old 
Testament. 1 Chrysostom, towards the close of the fourth 
century, says : "Our circumcision — I mean baptism — 
comes without pain, and procures for us a thousand 
benefits, and fills us with the grace of the Spirit ; and 
it has no fixed time, as circumcision had ; but one that 
is in the beginning of his age, or one in the middle of 
it, or one that is in old age, may receive this circum- 
cision without hands." Augustine, in the beginning of 
the fifth century, says : " The whole Church practises 
infant baptism ; it was not instituted by councils, but 
was always in use." In his controversy with the Pela- 
gians concerning Original Sin, which they denied, he 
dwells severely upon their inconsistency in baptizing 
infants, showing that the sacrament can have no mean- 
ing as applied to those who are not by nature sinful. 
He says : " The Pelagians grant that infants must be 
baptized, not being able to resist the authority of the 
whole Church, which was doubtless delivered by our 
Lord and His Apostles." Other defenders of the ortho- 
dox faith were not as fair to the Pelagians as Augustine 
was. Pelagius himself complains of their misrepresen- 
tations. He says : " Men slander me by the charge that 
I deny baptism to infants. I never heard of any one, 
not the most impious heretic, who denied baptism to 
infants." Now, who can impeach the testimony of 
Pelagius on this point ? If the practice of baptizing 
infants was so prevalent in the Church in his day that 
1 Ante-Nicene Library : Cyprian's Works, i. 196. 



THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OE INFANTS. 81 

he never heard of any one who denied it, surely this is 
a phenomenon which demands an explanation. How 
shall we account for it ? Augustine and Origen declare 
that the practice was founded on the example and pre- 
cepts of the Apostles. And in their day, though the 
Church was full of controversies, and men were no more 
bound then than they are now by prescriptive authority, 
this explanation was never questioned. If men now 
deny the explanation of the Fathers, this does not de- 
stroy the facts, which still remain to be explained. 
The burden of proof is on them. They are bound to 
show where and how the practice of baptizing infants 
arose, and above all to account for the fact that it was 
universally accepted by the Church without opposition 
or protest. It is no sufficient answer to this reasonable 
demand to make general and sweeping charges of un- 
soundness against the Fathers, and to remind us that a 
great many corruptions crept into the Church during 
the first four centuries. We admit, of course, that many 
of the Fathers erred concerning the faith, and that soon 
after the days of the Apostles the Church began to 
adopt many unscriptural practices. We admit also, for 
we have abundant evidence of the fact, that many of 
these errors in opinion and practice had reference to 
the doctrine and administration of baptism. But all 
this does not touch the question before us, which is, 
how the Church could have passed from the baptism of 
none but adults to the universal practice of baptizing 
infants, without any recorded controversy upon the sub- 
ject, and without leaving any historic traces of the 
change. 1 

1 When men so learned and so candid as Augustine and Pelagius, 
though earnestly opposed to each other in doctrinal opinions, agree 
in declaring that they never heard of any one who claimed to be a 

6 



82 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

II. To the historic argument thus briefly recited, the 
most common and plausible answer is an appeal to the 
alleged silence of Scripture. We are told that the tes- 
timony of the Fathers is of no account. We are chal- 
lenged to produce a single text of Scripture in which 
the baptism of infants is enjoined or permitted, or a 
single example of such an administration of the ordi- 
nance recorded in the Bible. 

Even if we admit to its fullest extent the alleged 
silence of Scripture, which we are far from doing, this 
argument is more specious than sound. It has this 
fatal defect, that it proves too much. There are many 
things about which the Bible says nothing, which all 
Christians believe and insist upon. 

Marriage is admitted by all Christians to be a Divine 
institution. Church and State guard it as the founda- 
tion of society, and both insist that in order to constitute 
a lawful marriage there must be, not only an agreement 
between the parties, but a ceremony, the essence of which 
is a verbal contract in the presence of at least one wit- 
ness. No two persons are regarded as lawfully married 
simply because they have agreed to live together as man 
and wife, nor is there a church in Christendom to whose 
communion persons sustaining such a relation to each 
other would be admitted. But where is the express 
Scripture warrant for this requirement ? There is not 

Christian, either orthodox or heretic, who did not maintain and 
practise the baptism of infants ; to suppose, in the face of such tes- 
timony, that the practice crept in as an unwarranted innovation be- 
tween their time and that of the Apostles, without the smallest 
intimation of the change having ever reached their ears, — ■ is, of all 
incredible suppositions, one of the most incredible. He who can 
believe this must, it appears to me, be prepared to make a sacrifice 
of all historic evidence at the shrine of blind and deaf prejudice. — • 
Miller on Infant Baptism, Presbyterian Tracts, i. 28. 



THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OE INEANTS. 83 

a specific text nor a recorded instance in the whole 
Bible to sustain it. No form of ceremony is prescribed, 
no example of the performance of such a ceremony is 
reported, there is not in all Scripture an explicit declara- 
tion that any ceremony whatever is necessary. Will 
the opponents of the baptism of infants carry out their 
favorite method of reasoning to its logical conclusion, 
and insist that, because the Scriptures are silent upon 
the subject, marriage ceremonies are unscriptural and 
wrong, and ministers exercise usurped prerogatives in 
performing them ? 

All Christians who observe the Lord's Supper agree 
that it is to be administered to all who make a credible 
profession of Christ's name and join themselves to His 
people. But where is there a single passage of Scrip- 
ture which says that women are to be admitted to the 
Lord's table ? "Where is the passage in the New Testa- 
ment which expressly declares that any women ever did 
participate in the communion in the days of the Apos- 
tles ? It cannot be found. Will the opponents of the 
baptism of infants be consistent with themselves and 
make the silence of the Scripture a plea in bar against 
the admission of women to the Lord's Supper ? They 
will doubtless answer that women are redeemed by 
Christ, they are capable of salvation, they have the 
qualifications for communion, and having received the 
benefits signified and sealed by this sacrament, they are 
entitled also to the outward sign and seal. All of 
which is equally true of the right of infants to baptism. 
If the silence of Scripture does not exclude women from 
the one sacrament, neither does it exclude infants from 
the other, even if the silence were the same in both 
cases, which we are very far from admitting. 

Most Christians rejoice to believe that infants, dying 



84 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

in infancy, are saved through the mercy of God in 
Christ, notwithstanding they are incapable of exercising 
and confessing faith in Christ, which is the only ex- 
pressed condition of salvation. But where is the text 
which says this in so many words ? It is an inference 
which we accept as fully warranted by Scripture. But 
where is the explicit statement of this doctrine ? An 
"able minister of the letter which killeth" (2 Cor. iii. 
6) can easily construct a Scripture argument to prove 
that no infant can be saved. He that believe th and is 
baptized shall be saved; no infant can believe and be 
baptized : therefore no infant can be saved. But " the 
Spirit, which maketh alive," recognizes that Christ in 
the words quoted does not lay down the exclusive con- 
dition of salvation for all mankind, but only for those 
who are capable of hearing and believing ; and infers 
from His silence — a silence which is broken, however, 
by many still small voices, and from the knowledge of 
His character and mission — that there is salvation also 
for those who are incapable of believing. The fact is, 
that no Christian, Bom an Catholic or Protestant, re- 
stricts his faith or practice by that which is expressly 
set down in Scripture. It is not the orthodox doctrine 
that the Scriptures record in words all things necessary 
for God's glory and man's salvation. The Catholic 
truth on this point is clearly stated in the Westminster 
Confession of Faith (chap. i. sect. 6) : " The whole coun- 
sel of God concerning all things necessary for His own 
glory and man's salvation, faith, and life, is either ex- 
pressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary 
consequence may be deduced therefrom." The Scripture 
warrant for the baptism of infants is not so much direct 
as it is inferential. But it is -not the less strong on 
that account. It underlies a multitude of facts; it is 



THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OF INFANTS. 85 

involved in exceeding great and precious promises, 
which are still moving on to their fulfilment ; it is cir- 
cumstantial to doctrines which are fundamental to the 
whole system of revealed truth ; it is rooted in the 
Gospel which was "preached aforetime to Abraham," 
and in the whole structure and design of Apostolic 
Christianity, by which "the blessing of Abraham has 
come upon the Gentiles through Jesus Christ " (Gal. iii. 
8, 14); it rests not upon any one part of the Bible, but 
upon the Bible taken as a whole ; it is in the very warp 
of the Scriptures. 

III. The whole controversy concerning the church 
membership and baptism of infants hinges upon the 
more profound question of the perpetuity and identity of 
the Church as a Divine institution in the world. We 
hold that the Church of God is one and the same in all 
ages, being built upon the foundation of the Prophets 
as well as of the Apostles. God did not begin to build 
under the Old Testament, and then throw the work 
away and begin over again under the New. Judaism 
and Christianity are not different, much less hostile, 
religions. There is an organic and vital connection be- 
tween the Old and the New Testament Scriptures ; and 
as they constitute in their oneness the Word of God, 
which liveth and abideth forever, so the people of God 
under both dispensations constitute one and the same 
Church. The proof of this lies on the very surface of 
the Scriptures. The titles of the Church run through 
the whole sacred history, and are used in the same sense 
by Prophets and Apostles. The Kahal of the Old Testa- 
ment is synonymous with the Ecclesia of the New. The 
Church of God is the kingdom of God. In His parables, 
the Saviour constantly speaks of the kingdom of God 
in such connections and under such imagery as to show 



86 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

that He is describing an external and visible organiza- 
tion, — the very same kingdom which is described in such 
glowing terms by Isaiah, and to which such precious 
promises of perpetuity and glory are made by all the 
Prophets. This Church or kingdom is not a series of 
scattered and isolated democracies, but one visible or- 
ganization under a royal and Divine dominion. Its 
membership, even under the Old Testament dispensa- 
tion, was not confined to the natural descendants of 
Abraham. Any Gentile might join it by complying 
with certain prescribed conditions. Hence at the day 
of Pentecost " there were dwelling at Jerusalem devout 
men out of every nation under heaven, both Jews and 
proselytes" (Acts ii. 5, 10). And while the converts to 
Christianity continued with one accord in the temple, 
claiming their privileges and performing their duties as 
defined under the old dispensation, and without any 
consciousness of being separated from the Church of 
their fathers, " the Lord added to the Church daily such 
as should be saved." 1 

Not only the titles but the mission and functions 
of the Church are the same under both dispensations, 
and could be fulfilled only by her perpetuity. "She 
is the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. iii. 15). 
To her are "committed the oracles of God" (Eom. 
iii. 2). If the New Testament Church is not the 
development and perpetuation of the Old Testament 

1 The abolition of those restrictions which were suited to a pre- 
paratory state fitted her for universality ; but that which fitted her 
for universality could in no sense whatever be her annihilation. 
The Jews were not cut off till after the Gentiles were taken in ; and 
the excision of the Jews was no more the extermination of the visible 
Church than the lopping off" of the diseased branches is the felling of 
the tree. — Mason : Essays on the Church of God (Works, ii. 276). 



THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OF INFANTS. 87 

Church, then the Old Testament Scriptures are not com- 
mitted to her, and are no part of her rule of faith and 
practice, and the whole Scriptures have never been 
committed to any church for their preservation and 
exposition. 

Moreover, the promises made to the visible Church 
and kingdom of God, many of which are yet unfulfilled, 
necessarily involve her perpetuity and identity. Take, 
for example, the words of Isaiah (lx. 3-5) : " The Gentiles 
shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy 
rising. . . . The abundance of the sea shall be converted 
unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall be converted 
unto thee." These and similar promises were made, not 
to the Jews as a nation, not to the Jewish common- 
wealth, but they were made to the Church of God, em- 
bodied and covered under these temporal conditions. 
Christ gives us the summary of all these Old Testament 
promises to the Church when He tells us " they shall 
come from the east and from the west, from the north 
and from the south, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob in the kingdom of God." 

The whole history of the new dispensation shows 
that the Church is one and the same. Christ Himself 
was circumcised, and received the baptism of John, and 
" fulfilled all righteousness " as a birthright member of 
the kingdom of God under the old economy. And 
while He was still a regular attendant upon the temple 
and an observer of the Feasts, He said, " tell it to the 
Church," as a rule of discipline for all time. He ate 
the passover the same night in which He instituted the 
Lord's Supper, thus showing the identity of the two 
sacraments, which Paul recognizes when he says, " Christ 
our Passover is sacrificed for us ; let us keep the feast 
with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth " (1 



88 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

Cor. v. 7). Christianity appeared to both Jew and Gen- 
tile, and achieved its earliest and most signal triumph 
under the aspect of a new development of the same old 
religion. The Gospel was first proclaimed in the syna- 
gogues, and appealed for its vindication to the Old 
Testament Scriptures. The great Apostle of the Gen- 
tiles constantly insisted upon this vital connection 
between the Old and the New. Before Agrippa and 
the assembled Romans he declared, "I stand and am 
judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto 
our fathers " (Acts xxvi. 6). Appealing to the Jews, 
who rejected the Gospel and prided themselves on ad- 
hering to the law, he says, " We are the circumcision, 
which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ 
Jesus" (Phil. iii. 3). In the eleventh chapter of the 
Epistle to the Eomans, the Apostle compares the Church 
of God to the olive-tree, from which some of the nat- 
ural branches (the Jews) were broken off, and into 
which the wild olive-tree (the Gentiles) were grafted. 
But he cautions the Gentile Christians against being 
puffed up by the mercy which had been shown to 
them. "And if some of the branches be broken off, 
and thou, being a wild olive, wert grafted in among 
them, and with them partakest of the root and fat- 
ness of the olive-tree, boast not against the branches ; 
thou bearest not the root, but the root thee." The tree 
remains the same, though the branches are changed, and 
the root and fatness of it support and nourish those who 
are grafted into it. " The ancient theocracy is merged 
in the kingdom of Christ. The latter is but an en- 
largement and elevation of the former. The Church 
of God is the same in all ages and under all dispen- 
sations. It is the society of the true people of God, 
together with their children. The olive-tree is one, 



THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OF INEANTS. 89 

though the branches are numerous, and sometimes 
changed." x 

It follows from the perpetuity and identity of the 
Church that whatever privileges were granted and what- 
ever promises were made to her under the old dispensa- 
tion, remain in full force until they are either explicitly 
repealed or exhaustively fulfilled. 

IV. The promises and privileges given to her and 
constituting her endowment and inheritance in all ages 
are summed up in the covenant with Abraham, which is 
the perpetual charter of the Church. 

The idea of a covenant between God and men, whether 
in the broad sense of a Divine arrangement or in the 
more specific sense of a promise suspended upon a con- 
dition, is one of the seed- thoughts of the Bible. Abra- 
ham stands in the same relation to the redeemed that 
Noah sustains to the whole human race ; and the cove- 
nant with Abraham is the revelation and the promise of 
redemption, just as the covenant with Noah was the 
revelation of the Divine purpose and plan of Provi- 
dence over the world. To regard Abraham as a Jew or 
as one of the children of Israel is to misapprehend his 
relation to the people of God in all ages, and to miss 
the true scope and meaning of the promises which were 
made to him as the father of all the faithful. He was 
a Gentile, called out from the world and made the cove- 
nant head of the Holy Catholic Church. The original 
promise concerning the seed of the woman was localized 
in his family, and afterwards in the family of Jacob in 
preference to that of Esau, and still further restricted 
to the tribe of Judah, the father of the Jews, and still 
further to the house and lineage of David, the theo- 
cratic representative of the Messiah ; but all these re- 
1 Dr. Hodge, Commentary on Romans, xi. 17-24. 



90 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

strietions were outward and temporary, they did not 
abrogate the original promise, nor restrict the univer- 
sality of its meaning. Abraham and Israel and Judah 
and David, with all they specifically represented, were 
but trustees to whom the keeping of the promise was 
committed until, in the fulness of time, the glory of 
Israel should become a light to lighten the Gentiles. 

The Abrahamic covenant in its universality and per- 
manence must be distinguished from the national cove- 
nant made at Mount Sinai with the children of Israel 
and the mixed multitude who constituted " the church 
in the wilderness" (Acts vii. 38). This Sinaitic cove- 
nant was superseded and done away with by the bring- 
ing in of " the better covenant established upon better 
promises" (Heb. viii. 6, 9). But this better covenant 
was new only in respect to that which it superseded. 
In itself it was the fulfilment of the same old promise, 
which the law, including all that was peculiar to the 
Sinaitic covenant, could not disannul (Gal. iii. 17). The 
covenant with Abraham, which was made four hundred 
years before the giving of the law on Sinai, is the 
earliest and the most permanent embodiment and pub- 
lication of the covenant of grace. This is evident from 
its express terms, whether we consider its duration, its 
subjects, or its substance. 

As to its duration, it is an everlasting covenant. "I 
will establish My covenant between Me and thee, and 
thy seed after thee for an everlasting covenant " (Gen. 
xvii. 7). 1 

1 Some commentators take the word " everlasting " as applied to 
the possession of the land, in an accommodated sense, to signify its 
possession during the continuance of the Mosaic dispensation. But 
we cannot bring our mind to accept this interpretation. Besides 
seeming forced and unnatural, it does not appear to be sustained by 



THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OF INFANTS. 91 

As to its subjects, the Abrahamic covenant includes all 
the nations of the earth. It was not made with Abra- 
ham as the progenitor of the Jews, but as " the father 
of many nations ; " and this is further explained by the 
declaration, " In thee and in thy seed shall all the na- 
tions of the earth be blessed." The seed of Abraham 
is synonymous and identical with the "seed of the 
woman," in the specific application of the expression, 
to the " one seed which is Christ" (Gal. iii. 19), and in 
its broader application to all Christ's redeemed people 
in every age and land. 

Abraham never was and never can be the father of 

the facts. The children of Israel did not have the land of Canaan 
for an everlasting or continuous possession even from the days of 
Moses to the coming of Christ. The only period during which they 
were in undisputed possession was the reign of David and Solomon; 
and surely that cannot be fairly considered an everlasting possession 
even in the accommodated sense of the word. We are shut up to 
the conclusion that the unfulfilled promise is yet to be made good in 
one of two ways : (1) by the actual return and permanent settle- 
ment of Abraham's natural descendants in the land wherein he was 
a stranger and pilgrim ; or, (2) by the final ingathering of the whole 
Church of God, which is the spiritual seed of Abraham, into that 
heavenly and better country for which the patriarchs longed even 
while they dwelt in the earthly Canaan (Heb. xi. 9-16). 

" Now, if the whole land of Canaan was promised to this pos- 
terity, which was to increase into a multitude of nations, it is per- 
fectly evident that the sum and substance of the promise was not 
exhausted by the gift of the land whose boundaries are described in 
Gen. xv. 18-21, as a possession to the nation of Israel, but that 
the extension of the idea of the lineal posterity, ' Israel after the 
flesh ' to the spiritual posterity ' Israel after the spirit,' requires the 
expansion of the idea and extent of the earthly Canaan, whose 
boundaries reach as widely as the multitude of nations having Abra- 
ham as father; and therefore Abraham received the promise that 
he should be 'heir of the world '" (Rom. iv. 13). — Delitzsch on 
Pentateuch, i. 225. 



92 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

many nations in any lineal and literal sense. His 
natural seed never was and is not now as the stars of 
heaven and as the dust of the earth for number. The 
children of Israel, with the Edomites and Ishmaelites 
added, never numbered a hundredth part of the popula- 
tion of the earth. Besides, if we look at the terms of 
the covenant, we shall see that Ishmael and the sons of 
Keturah were expressly excluded from the process by 
which the seed of Abraham was to become innumerable. 
He was to become a multitude of nations through 
Sarah and the son of his old age ; and the promise, so 
far as its fulfilment was to be accomplished through his 
natural descendants, was still further restricted in the 
family of Isaac by the exclusion of Esau ; so that if 
Abraham is to become the father of many nations, ac- 
cording to the terms of the covenant, it must be through 
Jacob. But the twelve sons of Jacob and their descend- 
ants constituted only one nation, with whom God en- 
tered into the legal and national covenant of Sinai. 
Was the law against the promises of God ? Did that 
legal arid national covenant with the Israelites do away 
with the better covenant established upon better prom- 
ises, made with Abraham four hundred years before ? 
By no means. These successive restrictions were de- 
signed to keep alive the promise during the age of 
preparation, and to secure its ultimate expansion in the 
fulness of time. In Christ, the Son of Man and the 
Son of God, the spiritual posterity of Abraham embraces 
all nations ; Abraham is "the father of all who believe" 
and "the heir of the world" (Eom. iv. 11, 13). 

It is evident, not only from the perpetuity and uni- 
versality of the Abrahamic covenant, but also from the 
substance of its promises, that it was a covenant of grace 
and salvation. It was the Gospel in its germ. Its 



b 



THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OE INFANTS. 93 

central promise and innermost meaning was salvation 
through Christ. It summed up and provided for the 
fulfilment of all the gracious intimations of redemption 
which had been given to man since the fall ; and from 
it, as from a Divine seed, all subsequent revelations of 
grace and truth are unfolded. From the beginning it 
opened the door for the admission of all nations to the 
fellowship of God and His people. Its holy sign and 
seal were by Divine command applied not only to Abra- 
ham and his children, but to all who were in his house, 
— to the stranger and his children. And this door was 
kept open and carefully guarded under the Sinaitic 
covenant. Not only the lineal descendants of Abraham, 
but proselytes from every land, might come with their 
children into fellowship with the God of Israel, who was 
even then declared to be the God of the whole earth. 1 

The exposition of the Abrahamic covenant in the 
Epistles to the Eomans, the Galatians, and the Hebrews, 
demonstrates conclusively that it is a revelation of the 
covenant of grace, and identical with the Gospel. The 
Apostle repudiates and resents the imputation that he is 
advocating a new religion, or setting up a new church, 
or proclaiming the fulfilment of any other promises than 
those " unto which are twelve tribes instantly serving 
God day and night hope to come " (Acts xxvi. 17). He 
affirms that "the Gospel was preached aforetime unto 
Abraham," and that the covenant with him " was con- 
firmed before of God in Christ" (Gal. iii. 8, 17); that 
" Christ is the minister of the circumcision for the truth 

1 The exclusiveness of the Jews in the later periods of their 
national history, grew not out of the sacred trust committed to them 
for the benefit of mankind, but out of their own political pride, 
whereby they perverted that trust and made void the law of God by 
their traditions. 



94 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers " 
(Eom. xv. 8) ; that " He has redeemed us from the curse 
of the law, that the Messing of Abraham might come 
upon the Gentiles " (Gal. iii. 13, 14) ; that the literal 
are not the true children of Abraham according to the 
terms of the covenant, " for he is not a Jew who is one 
outwardly," " neither because they are the seed of Abra- 
ham are they all children, but the children of promise 
are counted for the seed," "for the promise that he 
should be heir of the world was not to Abraham or to 
his seed through the law, but through the righteousness 
of faith" (Eom. ii. 28; ix. 7; iv. 13). "And if ye be 
Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs accord- 
ing to the promise" (Gal. iii. 29). 

These three grand features of the Abrahamic cove- 
nant, — its everlastingness, its universality, and its gra- 
ciousness, — demonstrate that every promise made to the 
father of the faithful, and every principle which entered 
into the organization of the church in his house, holds 
good and is in full force at the present day ; that the 
relation established between Jehovah and the true chil- 
dren of Abraham " to be a God unto thee and to thy 
seed after thee " can never be dissolved ; that the Abra- 
hamic covenant is the perpetual charter of the Church. 

V. The covenant with Abraham includes as its most 
essential and distinctive feature on its human side the 
church-membership of infants. The promise is, " I will 
be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee." And to 
show that this promise pertains to the seed of believers 
from their birth, the sisrn and seal of the covenant under 
the Old Testament dispensation was fixed by Divine 
command upon both the natural and adopted children 
of Abraham in their infancy, that God's " Covenant 
might be in their flesh for an everlasting covenant." 



THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OE INFANTS. 95 

They were circumcised, not to bring them into the 
Church, but because they were born into the Church by 
virtue of the covenant relation of their parents to God. 
Otherwise there is no force nor meaning in the threaten- 
ing, " The uncircumcised man-child shall be cut off from 
his people; he hath broken my covenant" (Gen. xvii. 
14). How could he be cut off if he were not already 
in organic and vital connection with God's people ? 
How could he break God's covenant if he were not born 
an heir to its privileges and a subject to its obligations ? 
"No one who admits that there was any Church of God 
under the Old Testament dispensation will deny that 
the infant children of all who belonged to it, whether 
Jews or proselytes, were recognized and treated as birth- 
right members. It was just this that constituted the 
difference and the advance in the revelation of grace 
which was made to Abraham beyond what was made to 
the patriarchs before him. It was just this that marked 
a new era in the progressive history of redemption. It 
was just this that emphasized and gave a permanent 
significance to Abraham's calling out of the world, and 
made him and his house the germ of the Church which 
is to exist throughout all ages, till the plan and work of 
redemption are complete in the glory of the Church 
triumphant. God had believing people and worshippers 
in the world before Abraham, but no organized and 
visible Church. And broad and deep at the foundation 
of that Church is laid the great principle that the family 
is its unit, and that the children of believers are in- 
cluded in the covenant with their parents as birthright 
members of that Church. 

VI. As the Abrahamic covenant in its graciousness 
and universality is an everlasting covenant, and as the 
Church under the New Testament is identical with the 



96 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

Church under the Old Testament, so also baptism is 
identical with circumcision. It is the seal of the same 
covenant ; it recognizes and confirms the same relation 
to God ; it is expressly declared in Scripture to mean 
the same thing ; and therefore, by good and necessary 
consequence, it is to be applied to the same subjects. 

The everlasting promise is : "I will be a God to you, 
and to your seed after you." 

To what other promise does Peter point, on the day of 
Pentecost, when he says : " The promise is to you and to 
your children " (Acts ii. 39) ? And what is his design in 
this reference but to assure the Jews and proselytes 
whom he is addressing that by joining the fellowship 
of Christ's disciples they would not forfeit any of the 
blessings covenanted to Abraham and to his seed ? He 
enforces upon the adults, to whom he is speaking, the 
exhortation to repent and be baptized, by the powerful 
motive that their children would have a right and title 
to the same covenant promises, the seal of which they 
would themselves receive in their baptism. 

Circumcision and baptism are identical in their sym- 
bolic meaning. They both signify the inward and spirit- 
ual grace of regeneration. " For he is not a Jew who is 
one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is 
outward in the flesh ; but he is a Jew who is one in- 
wardly, and circumcision is that of the heart in the 
spirit, aud not in the letter" (Eom. ii. 28). "In like 
manner," says Calvin, " may we in the present day re- 
fute the vanity of those who in baptism seek nothing 
but water. That man trifles, or rather is delirious, who 
would stop short at the element of water and the 
external observance, and not allow his mind to rise to 
the spiritual mystery." 1 

1 Calvin's Institutes, book 4, chap. xvi. 14. 



THE CHUKCH MEMBERSHIP OF INFANTS. 97 

What that spiritual mystery is, Paul explicitly de- 
clares in Col. ii. 11: "We are circumcised with the 
circumcision made without hands, the putting off of the 
body of sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, 
being buried with him in baptism." And again, he 
affirms that baptism is the seal of the Abrahamic cove- 
nant (in Gal. iii. 27, 29). " For as many as have been 
baptized into Christ are Abraham's seed and heirs ac- 
cording to the promise." 

Now, if baptism is the circumcision of Christ and the 
seal of the Abrahamic covenant ; if it signifies the same 
thing and seals the same promises under the new dispen- 
sation that circumcision did under the old, — it follows 
irresistibly, in the absence of any express restriction to 
the contrary, that it is to be applied to the same classes 
of persons and upon the same conditions ; that is, to 
adult proselytes who profess their faith, and to the chil- 
dren of believers. The only change is in the outward 
form of the ordinance ; its signification and its subjects 
are left unchanged. If the State of New Jersey, by Act 
of Legislature or in a constitutional convention of the 
people, should alter the form of its seal, saying nothing 
about the uses to which it should hereafter be applied, 
that would neither invalidate any document which has 
been ratified by the old seal, nor prevent the new one 
from being applied to similar State papers in the future. 
The argument for the baptism of infants is thus put 
into a nutshell. Infants were circumcised under the 
old dispensation; circumcision signifies and seals the 
same thing with baptism : therefore infants are to be 
baptized. We retort upon those who demand a more 
explicit Scripture warrant, in so many words, for the 
baptism of infants, by demanding of them an explicit 
warrant for excluding them from the ordinance. The 

7 



98 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

burden of proof lies on them, not on us. The covenant 
made with Abraham still stands, and is enlarged, in 
fact, according to its original design and promise, so as 
to include " those which were afar off, even as many as 
the Lord our God shall call." " Though it be but a man's 
covenant, yet, if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth 
or addeth thereto " (Gal. iii. 15). And the most explicit 
condition upon which the blessings promised in this 
covenant are suspended is the command that every 
child of believing parents, whether of the natural or the 
adopted seed of Abraham, shall receive the appointed 
sign and seal. JSTow, show us the chapter and verse of 
the New Testament where Christ, or one of His Apos- 
tles, has declared or intimated that infants are no longer 
to be regarded and treated as members of the Church 
of God, heirs of the covenant promises, and recipients 
of its appointed seal. 

VII. In the light of these scriptural facts and prin- 
ciples we interpret the Saviours great commission. He 
was "a minister of the circumcision for the truth of 
God to confirm the promises made unto the fathers" 
(Eom. xv. 8). "He hath redeemed us from the curse 
of the law, that the blessing of Abraham might come 
upon the Gentiles " (Gal. iii. 13, 14). When, after His 
sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection, He said 
to His disciples, " Go ye therefore and teach all nations, 
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe 
whatsoever I have commanded you," He did not repu- 
diate His mission to the seed of Abraham, nor annul 
the covenant relation between God and His people, but 
only announced the predestined and promised enlarge- 
ment of its scope as including all nations ; He did not 
abolish the seal of the covenant, but only changed its 



THE CHUECH MEMBERSHIP OF INFANTS. 99 

outward form ; and above all, He did not restrict the 
subjects to whom that seal should be applied, but only- 
declared in explicit terms that the enlargement which 
had been prefigured in the old law of proselytism was 
now complete. One of the most important rules in the 
interpretation of any Scripture precept is to put our- 
selves in the place of those to whom it was originally 
addressed. Its meaning is not to be determined by the 
words alone, but by the circumstances in which they 
were spoken, by the state of mind to which they were 
addressed, and by all the preceding history whereby the 
understanding of them would be influenced. This rule 
is always observed in the interpretation of human law. 
A new statute is interpreted in the light of the old. 
Whatever of the old is not repealed, either expressly or 
by necessary implication, stands in all its original force. 
And when, after the lapse of years, doubts arise as to 
these implications, the solution is sought for in the 
question how they who were first required to obey the 
law would naturally understand it. There is no diffi- 
culty in applying these simple rules to the interpreta- 
tion of the great commission. They to whom it was 
addressed were Jews, members of the Church under the 
old dispensation, and fully imbued with its spirit. The 
idea of the church-membership of infants, and the ap- 
plication of the seal of the covenant to them, were as 
familiar to the minds of the Apostles as the idea of 
God's existence. They could not possibly infer from 
anything Christ had commanded or taught that this 
fundamental principle was to be repealed. Certainly 
nothing in the great commission gives the least inti- 
mation of such a change. Nor is there any intimation 
that such a change was in fact accomplished, in all the 
subsequent discussions between the Apostle of the Gen- 



100 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

tiles and the Jewish converts who were still zealous for 
the law of Moses. 

The emphasis of the great commission was on "all 
nations." Henceforth they were not to confine their 
proselyting labors, as they had hitherto done, to the 
lost sheep of the house of Israel. Their new field was 
the world. Now, suppose the command had been, " Go, 
disciple, or proselyte, all nations, circumcising them in 
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost : " would there have been the least doubt 
in their minds as to whether the children of believing 
parents ought to receive the seal of the covenant ? 
Certainly not. Their lifelong training and their whole 
habits of mind would have led them to take for granted 
that the children were to be included with their parents 
just as they always had been. In the absence of all 
instruction to the contrary, why should they not, for 
the same reasons, include children with those whom 
they were commanded to baptize ? What possible 
reason can be assigned for excluding them from bap- 
tism, which will not apply with equal force as an argu- 
ment against their circumcision ? And so, on the other 
hand, what argument could have been used in favor of 
the circumcision of children, in case that word had been 
used in the great commission, which did not then and 
does not now apply in favor of the baptism of children ? 
The enlargement of the field in which the Apostles were 
to perform their proselyting labors, and the alteration 
in the outward form of the sign to be applied to those 
who were proselyted, could not suggest, much less re- 
quire, any change in the subjects to whom, or the con- 
ditions upon which, that sign was to be applied. This 
would hold good even if baptism, whether of adults or of 
infants, were an entirely new thing, a ceremony invented 



THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OF INFANTS. 101 

by Christ, and first announced to the Apostles in the 
great commission. But the fact is, that while Christ 
instituted baptism as a sacrament of the New Testament, 
the use of water in religious ceremonies as a symbol of 
purification was common to many nations, and was as 
familiar to the Jews as the eating of bread and the 
drinking of wine, which the Saviour consecrated into 
the symbols of His body and blood. 1 

VIII. The recorded fact that the Apostles baptized 
households, in immediate connection with the professed 
faith of one or both the parents, ought to be interpreted 
in the light of the facts and principles we have just 
applied to interpretation of the great commission. It 

1 The learned Dr. Lightfoot has demonstrated that it was the 
universal custom of the Jews in Christ's day, and for ages before, 
not only to circumcise, but also to baptize the infant children of 
heathens brought as proselytes into the Jewish Church. 

" Hence, also, the reason appears why the New Testament does not 
prescribe by some more accurate rule who the persons are to be bap- 
tized. The Anabaptists object, ' it is not commanded to baptize in- 
fants ; ' to whom I answer, it is not forbidden to baptize infants, 
therefore they are to be baptized. And the reason is plain. Eor 
when Pedobaptism in the Jewish Church was so well known, usual, 
and frequent in the admission of proselytes, there was no need to 
strengthen it by any precept when baptism was now passed into an 
evangelical sacrament. For Christ took baptism into His hands and 
into evangelical use as He found it, this only added, that He might 
promote it to a worthier end and to a larger use. The whole nation 
knew well enough that little children used to be baptized, and there 
was no need of a precept for that which had ever by common use 
prevailed. On the other hand, there was need of a plain and open 
prohibition against the baptism of infants if our Saviour would not 
have them baptized. For since it was most common in foregoing 
ages, if Christ had been minded to have that custom abolished, He 
would have openly forbidden it. Therefore, His silence and the 
silence of the Scripture on this matter confirms Pedobaptism, and 
continueth it to all ages" (Lightfoot's Works, ii. 59). 



102 THE MINISTRY AXD SACRAMENTS. 

is easy to say that there were no children in the families 
of Cornelius, of Lydia, of the Philippian jailer, and of 
Stephanus ; and it is no less easy to assert that these 
four are the only instances in which households, as such, 
were baptized by an Apostle. But without impeaching 
the sincerity of those who make these assertions, we 
venture to say that they never would have been made 
except under the stress of necessity to sustain a fore- 
gone conclusion. The thing to be proved is assumed in 
the premises. Infants are not to be baptized, therefore 
the Apostles baptized no more than four households, 
and in them there were no infants. In the absence of 
explicit statements, the decision of both questions must 
turn upon the balance of probability. Since we know 
that Peter and Paul baptized four households ; and since 
there is nothing whatever in the record of these cases 
to indicate that they were exceptional ; and since the 
baptism of households is in full accord with the princi- 
ples of the Abrahamic covenant, the precepts of the 
Mosaic law, and the practice of the Jews in the treat- 
ment of proselytes ; and since none of these principles, 
precepts, or practices were repealed or reprobated by 
Christ, — the strong probability, amounting to a moral 
certainty, is that Paul and all the Apostles were in the 
habit of baptizing households upon the professed faith 
of parents. 

And so also, we think, there is a probability, amount- 
ing to a moral certainty, that there were children in the 
households whose baptism is recorded. The natural 
probability in the case is confirmed by the form of the 
record. Why should these households be lumped to- 
gether, instead of recording the names of the individuals 
baptized ? Paul declares that at Corinth he had " bap- 
tized Crispus and Gaius and the household of Stephanus " 



THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OF INFANTS. 103 

(1 Cor. i. 14-16). Now, if that household consisted ex- 
clusively of adults, why not give their names, as well as 
the names of Crispus and Gaius ? If each one of them 
was a believer, having a personal standing in the church, 
not through the household covenant, but by virtue of a 
personal profession of faith and a personal relation to 
Christ, what could justify the Apostle in ignoring their 
individuality and embracing them all under the head of 
Stephanus ? It seems to be a moral certainty that the 
members of that household were children under age, 
for whom the father stood as the federal head. 

The form of the record in the case of the Philippian 
jailer greatly strengthens this opinion. To the ques- 
tion, " What must I do to be saved ? " Paul answers, 
" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 
saved, and thy house." This certainly establishes a 
connection between the jailer's faith and the salvation 
of his house. The one in some sense secures the other, 
whatever secondary means may be employed to realize 
that security. To make the Apostle's words mean noth- 
ing more than the truism that the same terms of salva- 
tion were offered to the jailer and to the adult members 
of his family, is to put a platitude into his mouth 
utterly foreign to his use of language. He might as 
well have said, " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
thou shalt be saved, and the Roman emperor." The 
connection between the faith of the father and the sal- 
vation of his house is real and influential ; it is some- 
thing more than the common conditions upon which he 
and other men might obtain salvation. "Believe on 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and thy house shall he saved." 
This seems to us to be the plain meaning of the words. 
Nor is this connection nullified by the recorded fact that 
the Apostle " spake the word of the Lord to him and 



104 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

to all that were in his house." The validity of God's 
promises does not depend upon our ability to under- 
stand them. He speaks to His children, as we do to 
ours, many things which are as yet beyond their com- 
prehension. Neither, again, is the connection explained 
by the power of the father's example, for that example 
had no time to exert an intelligent influence upon the 
household previous to their baptism, — "he was baptized, 
he and all his straightway." The whole record, when 
regarded simply as an account of the conversion and 
baptism of a company of adults, is strange and incon- 
gruous. But how plain and consistent with itself and 
with other Scriptures it becomes, when we read be- 
tween the lines the everlasting principles of the Abra- 
hamic covenant, of which baptism is the seal ! 

IX. The incarnation of Christ in its relation to in- 
fancy is a theme upon which the Scriptures say little, 
but suggest much. Is there no connection between His 
coming in the flesh and the salvation of that vast mul- 
titude, probably the majority of the human race, who 
die before they are capable of exercising faith in Him ? 
Is there no doctrinal significance and no saving efficacy 
in the fact that He assumed our nature in the form of 
an infant born of a woman, rather than in the form of a 
man created like Adam ? They who reject the baptism 
of infants are bound by logical consistency to answer 
these questions in the negative. The ablest advocates 
of their views do not hesitate to declare that " the Gos- 
pel has nothing to do with infants," that " the salvation 
of the Gospel is as much confined to believers as baptism 
is," and that "we know nothing of the means by which 
God receives infants, nor have we any business with it." 1 
All of which is undeniably true, if you first allow them 
1 Carson on Baptism, p. 173. 



THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OE INFANTS. 105 

to give a narrow definition to the Gospel by which they 
beg the whole question at issue. If the Gospel, as they 
assume, is nothing more than the proclamation of the 
terms on which God will save adults who are capable 
of believing in Christ, then, of course, the Gospel has 
nothing to do with the salvation of infants, and its 
ordinances have no respect to them. But we cannot 
accept a definition which thus hands over our little ones 
to uncovenanted mercies. As we understand it, the 
Gospel is much more and better than the proclamation 
of the terms on which God will save those who are 
capable of believing ; it is the declaration of His infi- 
nite love to a fallen world, the revelation of the way by 
which He seeks and saves that which was lost. We 
deny that any one, infant or adult, is regenerated by the 
proclamation of the Gospel. We are born again by the 
Holy Spirit, whose influences, the purchase of Christ's 
death and intercession, are not confined to words nor to 
any outward means, but, like the wind which bloweth 
where it listeth, works when and where and how He 
wills. How beautiful and how profound in their grasp 
of the true meaning of the Gospel are the words of 
Irenasus, the disciple of Polycarp, the disciple of the 
Apostle John : " Christ came to redeem all to Himself, 
all who through Him are regenerated to God, infants, 
little children, boys, young men and old. Hence He 
passed through every age, and for infants He became an 
infant, sanctifying the infants ; among the little chil- 
dren He became a little child, sanctifying those who 
belong to this age, at the same time setting them an ex- 
ample of piety, of well-doing, and of obedience. Among 
the young men He became a young man, that He might 
set them an example and sanctify them to the Lord." 
The belief that all who die in infancy are saved 



106 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

through Christ, which is now wellnigh universal among 
Protestant Christians, is not based upon any new reve- 
lation, but upon a clearer and broader apprehension of 
the old. It is the true import of the Gospel that " Where 
sin abounded, there grace did much more abound;" that 
" As sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace 
reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus 
Christ" (Eom. v. 20, 21). And how can grace "abound 
more exceedingly " than sin does, if infants are not in- 
cluded in the Gospel salvation ? And what then did 
Christ mean when He took infants in His arms and 
declared, Of such is the kingdom of God ? We believe 
that the satisfaction which He, as the seed of the woman 
and the Saviour of the world, rendered to God's broken 
law, takes away the guilt and condemnation of Adam's 
sin from the whole human race. " Behold the Lamb of 
God, which taketh away the sin of the world " (John i. 
16). The multitude of the redeemed, which no man 
can number, will include not only all believers, but all 
who have not " sinned after the similitude of Adam's 
transgression ; " that is to say, all who die in infancy. 
To limit Christ's seed, the travail of His soul which He 
saw and was satisfied, to those whom we can see and 
from whom we can hear the confession of their faith, 
is to bound the vision and the purpose of Christ by our 
finite senses. The only restrictions we are authorized 
to put upon redeeming grace are those which God Him- 
self has expressly imposed. We may not exclude any 
whom He has not excluded. He has excluded those 
who hear the Gospel and believe not ; but He has not 
excluded any infants. Here the silence of the Scrip- 
tures is profoundly significant, and it is exactly analo- 
gous, as it is co-extensive, with their silence in regard 
to the baptism of infants. Their baptism and their 



THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OF INFANTS. 107 

salvation rest upon the same broad foundations. The 
silence in both cases is underlaid and pervaded by a 
multitude of good and necessary inferences, and re- 
echoes with the sweetest utterances of the still small 
voice of God. It is a silence and an infinitude like that 
which we feel on the seashore, where the waves that 
murmur and break at our feet are as nothing to the ful- 
ness which stretches in our thoughts beyond the bounds 
of our horizon. 

" There 's a wideness in God's mercy 
Like the wideness of the sea." 

And as we believe that mercy is covenanted to our 
infant offspring, we do not hesitate to apply to them 
its outward sign and seal by baptizing them into the 
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost. 1 

X. Why then do we not baptize all infants ? 

If Christ's incarnation, in the form of a child born of 
a woman, has a special significance and efficacy in its 
relation to childhood, and if all who " have not sinned 
after the similitude of Adam's transgression" are in- 

1 God having appointed baptism as the sign and seal of regenera- 
tion, unto whom He denies it, He denies the grace signified by it. 
If therefore God denies the sign unto the infant seed of believers, it 
must be because He denies the grace of it ; and then all the children 
of believing parents dying in infancy must, without hope, be eter- 
nally damned. I do not say all must be so who are not baptized, 
but all must be so whom God would not have baptized. But this is 
contrary to the goodness and love of God, the nature and promises 
of the covenant, the testimony of Christ receiving them to the king- 
dom of God, the faith of godly parents, and the belief of the Church 
in all ages. It follows hence unavoidably that infants who die in 
their infancy have the grace of regeneration, and consequently as 
good a right unto baptism as believers themselves. — Owen : Works, 
xvi. 260. 



108 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

eluded among the redeemed, why do we restrict baptism 
to the children of believers ? The answer to this ques- 
tion is threefold : First, because baptism is not in any 
case the efficient cause of salvation ; it does not pro- 
duce, it only signifies and seals, our regeneration and 
engrafting into Christ. Secondly, because the efficacy of 
baptism, as a means of salvation, is not experienced by 
those who die in infancy, but only by those who live to 
maturity. An infant dying unbaptized is just as safe 
in Christ as though it had received the sacramental 
seal. Thirdly, because God has expressly conditioned 
the baptism of infants, even as He has conditioned the 
baptism of adults. But these conditions, depending in 
both cases upon duties prescribed to those who are- 
capable of performing them, do not of themselves ex- 
clude any from a participation in the sacrament. God 
does not deny baptism to any infant. This is true in 
the same sense that He does not deny salvation to any 
adult. Paul declares that " God our Saviour will have 
all m.en to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of 
the truth " (1 Tim. ii. 4). And Peter says : " He is not 
willing that any should perish, but that all should come 
to repentance " (2 Peter iii. 9). We take these declara- 
tions in their plain and full meaning. We do not 
whittle them away in order to dovetail them into other 
Scripture statements. At the same time we recognize 
the fact that God has prescribed certain conditions upon 
which alone men can be saved. We may not limit the 
Holy One of Israel in the exercise of His saving grace, 
but He may and does limit Himself. " He so loved the 
world " (that is, all mankind) " that He gave His only 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth Him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life." If in such declara- 
tions He seems to our finite apprehension to contra- 



THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OF INFANTS. 109 

diet Himself, we may safely leave Him to solve the 
difficulty. Meantime, it is enough for us to know that 
He has laid upon His Church the obligation to go and 
disciple and baptize all nations. 

In the same way, and with no greater apparent con- 
tradiction, He will have all infants to be baptized. He 
does not deny the sign and seal of His saving grace to 
any, even as He does not exclude any from salvation ; 
but at the same time He has restricted the universal 
application of baptism to infants by the express condi- 
tion that parents must themselves profess to believe and 
covenant to bring up their children in the faith and obe- 
dience of the Gospel. This condition is expressed in 
the explicit terms of the Abrahamic covenant, in the 
command of Christ to proselyte all nations as the pre- 
requisite to the baptism of themselves and their little 
ones, and in the example of the Apostle in baptizing 
the households of believers. The minister has no dis- 
cretion in this matter. His office is purely ministerial 
and declarative. He is to baptize only the children of 
those who are within the pale of the visible Church and 
in covenant with God, just as the priest under the old 
dispensation was to circumcise only those whose parents, 
whether by birthright or adoption, stood in the same 
Divine relationship. And the reasons for this restric- 
tion are obvious. The efficacy of baptism as a means 
of salvation is realized through the fidelity of those 
who are parties to the covenant. Ministers have no 
right to aid or encourage parents in making vows which 
there is no reasonable ground to believe they intend to 
fulfil. All God's purposes of salvation include the means 
as well as the end. There is no such thing revealed in 
Scripture as an absolute and unconditional decree of 
eternal life, to be executed irrespective of Christian 



110 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

character and the means by which that character is to 
be wrought out. A Christian education, in the case of 
those who live to years of maturity, is the normal and 
permanent agency by which salvation is to be secured. 
Instruction and regeneration in adult years are excep- 
tional, and belong to the infancy and formative period 
of the Church rather than to her maturity. As she 
approaches nearer to her millennial glory, and performs 
more fully her Divine commission, she will realize more 
and more the fulfilment of the promise, "All thy chil- 
dren shall be taught of the Lord" (Is. liv. 13). The 
miserable superstition which looks upon baptism as the 
christening or Christianizing of a child, and the still 
more degrading notion which regards it as the formal 
and ceremonial giving of a name, have their roots in ig- 
norance and indifference to the true meaning of God's 
solemn ordinance, and go very far to explain the la- 
mentable fact that so many children of the Church 
repudiate their obligations and sell their birthright for 
a mess of pottage. 

XI. What profit is there in the baptism of infants ? 
This is substantially the question that Paul discussed 
in regard to circumcision (in Eom. iii. 1, 2), and we may 
answer it as he did, — "Much every way." If, as we 
have shown, the baptism of our children is warranted 
and required by the example of the Apostles, by the 
conduct and words of Christ recognizing children as 
members of His Church, by the express conditions of 
the Abrahamic covenant, which is the perpetual charter 
of the Church, and by the identity of circumcision with 
baptism as the sign and seal of that covenant; then 
our obligation in this matter rests upon something 
infinitely higher and better than our apprehensions of 
the good which may result from our obedience. 



THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OF INFANTS. Ill 

But we are very far from resting our answer to the 
question under discussion upon prescriptive authority. 
We are encouraged to embrace our privilege and per- 
form our duty by antecedent probability and by ascer- 
tained facts. 

By the baptism of our little ones into the name of 
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, we recognize 
and lay hold upon the covenant promises which are to 
believers and their children, and accept God's pledge 
that if we do our duty in the performance of our vows, 
His blessing will follow. We put a visible mark of 
distinction upon the child, separating it from the pagan 
and unbelieving world, and acknowledging it as a birth- 
right member of the Church of God. We put ourselves 
under covenant bonds to behave ourselves before our 
children, and to mould their character, not as "pagans 
suckled in a creed outworn," but as the children of God 
and heirs of His promises ; and we endow our lips with 
an argument of Divine persuasiveness when, at the ear- 
liest dawn of intelligence, mingled with the sweet story 
of old, we whisper into the souls of our children the 
assurance that they are the lambs of Christ's flock, and 
bear His mark. We believe that no Christian parent, 
whose example and teaching were consistent, ever made 
such an appeal to the tender soul of a child without 
evoking a quick and abiding response. It does not 
invalidate these reasons to observe that the carelessness 
and neglect of parents so often make them of no effect. 
It is easy to pick out individual instances, where chil- 
dren seem to have been trained according to the baptis- 
mal covenant, and yet have become reprobate concerning 
the faith ; and then, generalizing from these exceptional 
instances, to ask unbelievingly, What profit is there in the 
baptism of infants ? We believe that the comparative 



112 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

number of such sad cases is greatly exaggerated ; that it 
is unwarrantably increased in our estimation by count- 
ing all as unregenerate and unconverted who have not 
passed through a prescribed process of religious experi- 
ence and "joined the church;" and that if we knew 
the secret history of the worst cases, and could trace 
out on the one hand the fatal defects in their Christian 
education, and on the other hand the instances in which 
Divine grace triumphs in those who, like Saul of Tarsus, 
are " born out of due season," the sad catalogue would be 
largely decreased, even if it were not entirely obliterated. 

The patent facts on the other side of this question, 
the innumerable instances in which the baptism of in- 
fants and their education in accordance therewith have 
brought forth immediate and apparent fruits, are full of 
glory to God and joy to us. The whole history of Chris- 
tianity abounds with them. 

We pray and look for a grand revival on this subject, 
which will largely increase the ministry with the best 
material, and give a new impulse to all the enterprises 
of the Church. Not the least of the blessed fruits of 
such a revival, indeed the very root of its influence, will 
be its effect upon Christian parents. It is true that they 
are bound to bring up their children for God and His 
Church, whether they make a covenant promise to do 
so or not. And so also every man is bound to live a 
Christian life, whether he professes his faith and obedi- 
ence to Christ or not. Such professions do not create, 
they only acknowledge, our obligations. But is there 
no inherent propriety, no tribute of honor to God, no 
stimulus and no comfort to ourselves in such acknowl- 
edgments ? A king who ascends the throne of his an- 
cestors, a chief magistrate who assumes the presidency 
of a great people to which he lias been elected, is bound 



THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP OF INFANTS. 113 

by the very inheritance or assumption of the office to 
discharge its duties faithfully. But is there no fitness 
and no moral power in the coronation or inauguration 
oath ? The most solemn office which any man or woman 
can inherit or assume, is the office of training an im- 
mortal soul. It is the type and the germ of all govern- 
mental authority ; it is the image of the Divine. God 
has no higher or more tender title than Our Father. To 
regard children as the unfortunate accidents of marriage 
is bestial. To look upon them as an encumbrance to 
faith is heathenish. Marriage is the Divinely appointed 
means for propagating the Church. The parental office 
is greatly magnified by the fact that our children are 
begotten by us, and receive from us by heredity untold 
influences for good or for evil. If the assumption of any 
office on earth ought to be signalized by a solemn in- 
auguration, this ought to be. The craving for such a 
ceremony is a parental instinct. God recognized it and 
wrought it into the foundations of the Church in the 
Abrahamic covenant. To cast it out of the Church is 
to tarnish her historic glory and to diminish her power ; 
to root it out of the parental heart is to destroy one of 
its finest susceptibilities to the religion of the Bible. 

We do not believe in any human, much less in any 
ceremonial or mechanical, salvation. " By grace are ye 
saved." " It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that 
runneth, but of God, that showeth mercy." But this is 
the Divine side of redemption, with which we have noth- 
ing to do but to believe and adore. On the human side 
the means are just as much ordained as the end. We 
must " give diligence to make our calling and election 
sure." We must " work out our salvation with fear and 
trembling, because God works in us to will and to do of 
His own good pleasure." And the same is true of the 

8 



114 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

salvation of our little ones. God, like a tender human 
mother, prepares for His true children before they are 
born. The cradle is made ready before they are laid in it. 
He does not leave them, like the ostrich, to be hatched in 
the desert and fed upon sand. Christians do not come 
from His moulding hand like Adam, full formed ; they 
are begotten and nourished, and grow as babes to the 
full stature of men. Christian nurture, beginning in in- 
fancy, inheriting traditional influences, and surrounded 
at the first dawn of consciousness by a religious atmos- 
phere, is the normal and Divine method for propagating 
the Church. Of this method the baptism of infants is 
the visible exponent and the mutual pledge between 
God and His believing people. "To be unbaptized, 
therefore, is a grievous injury and reproach, and one 
which no parent can innocently entail upon a child." x 

1 Hodge's Theology, iii. 579. 



LECTURE V. 

ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 

ALL the great Protestant denominations — Luther- 
ans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, Con- 
gregationalists, and Presbyterians — declare in their 
confessions and insist in their polity that the Christian 
ministry is of Divine appointment and essential to the 
existence of the visible Church. And the great body of 
their adherents regard the ministry, not as a profession 
co-ordinate with worldly callings, but as a sacred office, 
whose functions are performed in some sense by a 
Divine authority, of which ordination is the symbol and 
seal. There is not a local church in any of these 
denominations which would receive as its pastor a man 
who would declare that he is not called of God to his 
work ; and there are few, if any, who would acknowl- 
edge as their minister one whose call of God has not 
been ratified in some formal way by the Church. Here, 
then, is common ground. The agreement is generic, and 
wrought into the conscious life of the Church. Under 
the unifying influences and blessed hope of this agree- 
ment let us discuss our specific differences in an irenical 
spirit. What is ordination ? What are the Scriptural 
forms under which it is to be administered ? Who have 
the right to administer these forms ? These three ques- 
tions cover the whole ground. 

I. Ordination is "the public solemn attestation of 
the judgment of the Church that the candidate is called 



116 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

of God to the ministry of reconciliation, which attesta- 
tion authorizes his entrance upon the public discharge 
of his duties." x This definition is broad and simple, 
and though it is not as comprehensive as some would 
desire, we think it will be accepted, so far as it goes, by 
all who believe that ordination to the ministry is a 
Divine ordinance. 

All Christians who believe that the ministry is a 
Divine institution believe also that men are called of 
God individually to fill the sacred office. This call is 
the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart. It must pre- 
cede and is the Divine warrant for the investiture of 
the man with his office. Ordination does not consti- 
tute the call nor confer the essential qualifications for 
the office ; it assumes and ratifies both. In this all 
Protestants agree. It is taught with special emphasis 
in the Episcopal ordinal. The candidate must declare, 
before the hands of the bishop can be laid upon him, 
that he thinks and trusts that he is " truly called ac- 
cording to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in- 
wardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon him this 
office." " The Church at all times," says Haddan," and 
our branch of the Church in terms so strong that men 
sometimes demur to them, has required the inward call 
as well as the outward appointment." 2 

Now, this inward Divine call to the ministry is given 
to men in two ways, — the one immediate, miraculous, 
and extraordinary ; the other mediate, gracious, and ordi- 
nary. The immediate and miraculous call attests itself 
in the heart of the recipient, and is attested to others 
by supernatural signs. In such cases there is no need 
of any formal ordination. The mode of the call and 

1 Hodge's Polity of the Church, p. 144. 

2 Haddan, Apostolic Succession, p. 52. 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY, 117 

the infallible proofs which accompany its announcement 
leave nothing to be submitted to the judgment of the 
Church. To those who present such evidences of their 
commission it need only be said, " We know that thou 
art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these 
miracles which thou doest except God be with him." 
Hence the Apostles were not ordained in the technical 
sense of the word. They were appointed to office, and 
miraculously endowed by Christ Himself. They were 
commissioned to organize the Church under its New 
Testament form, and it was neither necessary nor prac- 
ticable to submit their claims , to its judgment. The 
case of Paul is an apparent, but only an apparent, ex- 
ception to this remark, as we shall show hereafter. We 
desire now to emphasize the observation that the Apostles 
were not ordained. Where it is said in the Authorized 
Version "He ordained twelve whom He called apos- 
tles " (Mark iii. 14), the word in the original is iiroLrjaev, 
which the Eevised Version correctly renders " He ap- 
pointed." Ordination, in the technical sense, is appro- 
priate only to those whose call to the ministry is 
through the ordinary operations of the Holy Spirit, un- 
accompanied by any direct revelation, and unattested 
by any miraculous signs. In such cases a man is not 
competent to judge for himself, nor can he enforce his 
judgment upon others. He believes and professes that 
he is called of God ; but the credibility of that profes- 
sion is to be submitted to the impartial judgment of 
others, just as a private person's profession of faith in 
Christ is to be examined and approved before he can be 
recognized as a member of the visible Church. And 
just as " baptism is the sign and seal of our regenera- 
tion and engrafting into Christ, and that even to in- 
fants," so also ordination is the sign and seal of a man's 



118 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

Divine call to the ministry. It is not the Divine call, 
but the ratification of it. It does not confer the essen- 
tial qualifications and the Divine authority of the office. 
This is the Eomish doctrine, which all Protestant con- 
fessions repudiate, and none more explicitly than the 
Episcopal ordinal. If the man has not the natural 
ability and the human learning necessary for his work, 
and, above all,-if he has not the call of the Holy Spirit 
in his heart, the hands of the ordainers can no more 
confer these things upon him than the sprinkling of 
consecrated water on the person of the baptized can 
regenerate the soul. But, then, it does not follow from 
this that the mere formal authority to enter upon his 
work is all that one who is called of God receives in 
his ordination. All Divine ordinances include in the 
words and the fact of their institution a promise of 
special Divine blessings to those who rightly use them. 
Ordination is not a sacrament according to our defini- 
tion of the word. Nevertheless, as the sacraments be- 
come " effectual means of salvation by the blessing of 
Christ and the working of the Holy Spirit in them that 
by faith receive them," so we believe that ordination is 
in the same way an effectual means of preparing the 
minister of Christ for the work to which he is called. 1 
God honors His own ordinance; in the very act of 
ordination, in answer to prayer, and with the laying on 
of hands, He bestows not only the formal investiture of 

1 We are constrained to differ on this point from many Presby- 
terian writers, who in their zeal for orthodoxy lean backward. Thus 
Dr. Smythe, in his " Presbytery and Prelacy," p. 171, says : " Ordina- 
tion is nothing more than induction to the sacred office. It is not 
the medium of any communicated character, official authority, or 
actual grace. No such meaning or interpretation is sanctioned by 
the Word of God, and it is therefore superstitious." This is good 
dogmatism, but poor exegesis. 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 119 

the office, but the inward and spiritual grace needful 
for the performance of its duties. What is there un- 
reasonable, un scriptural, or contrary to Christian experi- 
ence in this belief ? To denounce it as a superstition, 
to reject it with a sneer at the alleged impossibility of 
Divine grace coming to us through the laying on of 
hands by sinful men like ourselves, is the very essence 
of rationalism in the evil sense of the. word. It limits the 
Almighty to methods which we think we can understand 
and explain, it empties the sacraments of all Divine effi- 
cacy, and in its logical conclusions shuts out everything 
supernatural from the economy of Divine grace. In 
regard to what is conferred in ordination, the case of 
Timothy is not exceptional, but typical. Paul exhorts 
him not to " neglect the gift that is in thee which was 
given thee by prophecy with the laying on of the hands 
of the presbytery " (1 Tim. iv. 14). And again, " that 
thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the 
putting on of my hands " (2 Tim. i. 6). What is the 
yapta-pa rod Qeov which was bestowed upon Timothy 
in his ordination ? We must believe that it was some- 
thing more and better than the external authority for 
entering upon his office, something in addition to and 
confirmatory of his prophetic appointment to the minis- 
try; for it was in him as a personal possession and 
experience. Moreover, it was something to be stirred 
up and increased by use. He could not stir up his 
Divine call nor his official authority ; these were fixed 
facts, incapable of increase or diminution. The only 
thing to which the Apostle's words can be applied with- 
out doing violence to the laws of language is the spe- 
cial grace of God for the performance of his official 
duties, given to him in the act of ordination. Is it 
going beyond the recorded facts to call this charism 



120 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

" the grace of orders " in the same sense that the bene- 
fits received in baptism and the Lord's Supper may be 
called " sacramental grace" ? While we avoid the popish 
error which links God's spiritual gifts mechanically with 
the mere performance of outward ceremonies, we should 
be equally careful to avoid the greater, because the more 
unbelieving, heresy, which makes the performance of His 
appointed ordinances a mere outward form, and divorces 
them from His efficacious blessing upon those who rightly 
use them. 

Into the question whether any one who believes him- 
self to be called to and qualified for the work of the 
ministry may enter upon it without being ordained, we 
will not enter at length. The doctrine which sanctions 
such irregularities is new in the Presbyterian Church, 
and even among Congregationalists. The Westminster 
standards expressly declare that every minister of the 
Word must be " lawfully ordained." The history of 
the Church is against it, and we fail to see any warrant 
for it in Scripture, or in the present needs of the Church 
and the world. If a man claims to have a direct and 
extraordinary call from God to preach or to administer 
the sacraments, let him show his credentials, as Prophets 
and Apostles did, by miraculous signs. If he cannot 
do this, let him submit his claims and qualifications to 
the judgment of his brethren. The refusal to do so is 
a mark, not of superior piety, but of extraordinary 
presumption. 1 

1 For a full discussion of this subject, and a complete answer to 
the arguments in favor of lay evangelism as they are used in our 
day, we refer our readers to the " Jus Divinum Evangelici Minis- 
terii," a treatise published by the Provincial Synod of London in 
1654. The learned authors of this remarkable book declare the 
opinion that men, who suppose themselves called and qualified, may 
enter upon the work of the ministry on their own responsibility, is 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 121 

II. In regard to the outward form of ordination there 
is much confusion in the minds of ordinary readers of 
the New Testament, owing to the fact that our trans- 
lators have rendered several Greek words of various 
signification by the one English word " ordain." The 
Eevised Version does not entirely correct this infelicity. 
We cannot enter into a critical discussion of all the 
Scripture passages which bear upon our subject, nor can 
we review the conflicting theories founded upon them. 
It will be sufficient to state our conclusions. The essen- 
tial elements of the act of ordination are prayer and 
the laying on of hands, with the avowed intention of set- 
ting apart the candidate to the ivorJc of the ministry as 
one who, after due examination, is believed to be called of 
God to that office. Fasting is no part of the ceremony. 
It may or may not precede or follow, in the same way 
that a sermon may or may not be preached on the occa- 
sion. As a part of the ordaining act, the fast would 
necessarily be a very brief one, and hardly worthy of 
the name. To construe the one passage where fasting 
is mentioned as having preceded the praying and laying 
on of hands (Acts xiii. 2, 3) into the theory that fast- 
ing is an essential part of ordination, is to generalize 
upon a very small induction of facts. In this case the 

"a highway to all disorder and confusion," an "inlet to errors and 
heresies," and is "insufferable in a well-ordered Christian com- 
munity." These are the views of the men who framed our Presby- 
terian standards and fought the battle for evangelical truth and 
Christian liberty against formalism and spiritual tyranny. The 
movements of our time, by which such views are repudiated and 
denounced, have no right to the exclusive title of " evangelistic." 
So far as they produce any permanent results, their tendency and 
effect are to educate the masses away from the house of God and 
from His ordinances, and to aggravate the evils they are zealously, 
but not wisely, intended to cure. 



122 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

fasting was begun before there was any intention to 
ordain any one. Moreover, it is doubtful whether this 
was a case of ordination to the ministry at all, while in 
other cases in regard to which there is no question fast- 
ing is not mentioned. 

Though prayer and the laying on of hands are essen- 
tial parts of the ordaining act, it does not follow that 
every ceremony in which one or both of these is em- 
ployed is an ordination to the ministry. This is suffi- 
ciently obvious in regard to prayer ; why should it not 
be equally obvious in regard to the laying on of hands ? 
This ceremony was used in the Primitive Church on va- 
rious occasions and for various purposes. It was often 
no more than an expressive gesture accompanying a 
benediction. When Christ laid His hands on the chil- 
dren and blessed them, He certainly did not ordain 
them to the ministry. Neither did the Apostles ordain 
every one on whom they laid hands. The significant act 
was in many cases the outward sign of conferring the 
miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost. In others it was 
the external form under which a miracle was wrought. 
Why, then, should it be hastily inferred that Ananias' 
laying hands on Saul (Acts ix. 17), had anything to 
do with his appointment to the apostleship ? It is not 
called an ordination, and the record does not warrant 
our connecting it with anything but the restoration 
of the Apostle's sight. The passage in Acts xiii. 1-5, 
to which we have just referred, is more difficult. If, 
as many think, it describes Paul's ordination to the 
apostleship, his case was exceptional; he is the only 
Apostle who was formally ordained. And the excep- 
tion can be accounted for only on the ground that his 
former attitude toward the Church required a special 
authentication of his call to himself and others. But 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 123 

it is not easy to see what additional force his own open 
vision of the risen Saviour, his direct appointment as a 
chosen vessel to carry Christ's name to the Gentiles, and 
his power to work miracles, could derive from the lay- 
ing on of the hands of prophets and teachers. We prefer 
the interpretation which makes this setting apart of 
Paul and Barnabas not an ordination to the apostleship 
or to any office in the Church, but their consecration to 
a missionary work which was so important in itself, and 
marked such a distinct epoch in the history of Chris- 
tianity, as to warrant the use of the form of ordination. 
This is the view adopted by Haddan and other High- 
Church Episcopal writers. 

Election by the people of a particular church to the 
pastoral office is no part of ordination to the Christian 
ministry ; still less is ordination a mere adjunct follow- 
ing and consummating such an election. At this point 
there is a vital distinction between the Presbyterian 
and the Independent theory, growing necessarily out 
of the two views as to the constitution of the visible 
Church. 1 

1 According to the Independent theory, " besides particular 
churches, there is not instituted by Christ any church more exten- 
sive and catholic, entrusted with power for the administration of His 
ordinances, or the execution of any authority in His name." From 
which it follows that "the essence of the call of a pastor, teacher, 
or elder into office consists in the election of the church, together 
with his acceptance of it and separation by fasting and prayer ; and 
those who are so chosen, though not set apart by imposition of 
hands, are rightly constituted ministers of Christ, in whose name 
and authority they exercise the ministry to them so committed." 
(See Savoy Declaration, Schaff's Creeds of Christendom, iii. 371, 375 ; 
also John Owen's Nature of a Gospel Church, Works, vol. xvi.) 
The Westminster Confession, on the other hand, declares that " the 
visible Church is also catholic or universal under the Gospel," and 
that " to this catholic, visible Church Christ hath given the ministry, 



124 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

According to our theory, men are not ordained to the 
pastoral office in a particular congregation, nor to the 
ministry of any denomination of Christians, but to 
the ministry of the Word and sacraments in the visible 
Catholic Church. Election to the pastoral office is sim- 
ply one of the evidences by which a man's fitness for 
the work of the ministry is certified ; it is no more a 
part of his ordination than his examination in Greek or 
Hebrew. It is one thing to make a gold ring, and 
another to appropriate it to a bride's finger. It is one 
thing to make a man a minister in the Church of 
Christ, and another to install him pastor over a par- 
ticular flock. 1 

Scripture examples do not sustain the position that 
election by the people is any part of ordination. All 
that the one hundred and twenty disciples did in Acts i. 
was to appoint two and set them before the Lord. In- 
deed, it is by no means certain the people did this. 
" They " in verse 24 most naturally refers to the Apostles. 
But it was God who chose Matthias, by means of the 
lot ; there was no ordination in his case. " The lot fell 
upon Matthias ; and he was numbered with the eleven 
Apostles." In the case of the deacons in Acts vi. the 
people looked out seven men of honest report, and the 
Apostles "prayed, and laid their hands on them," thus 

oracles, and ordinances of God for the gathering and perfecting of 
the saints in this life unto the end of the world " (Conf. of Faith, 
chap. xxv. 2, 3). 

1 Presbyters are not by ordination confined unto places, but unto 
functions. They who theoretically hold the contrary do not act out 
their own doctrine. They do not ordain a man over again every 
time he changes his pastoral charge. They change their location 
many times without being re-ordained. All this, I presume, they 
would not do if their persuasion were as strict as their words pre- 
tend. — Hooker : Sec. Polity, book v. 80. 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 125 

ordaining them to their office. Nor is there in any 
other Scripture example the least intimation that pop- 
ular election is either of the essence or any part of the 
form of ordination. If the theory of Independency could 
be sustained, it would logically follow that a man or- 
dained to the ministry is a minister only in that partic- 
ular charge to which he is chosen, and is not authorized 
to exercise his office in any other place or among any 
other people, and that he would cease to be a minister 
at all as soon as the people's call and his own acceptance 
of it were reversed by the dissolution of his pastoral 
relation. But this is contrary to all Scriptures, as well 
as to all Christian usage. God has set ministers in the 
same Church with Apostles and Prophets (1 Cor. xii. 
28). They are called " ministers of God," " ministers 
of Christ," " ministers of the New Testament/' " ambas- 
sadors of Christ." To make either their investiture or 
their tenure of office dependent upon the changing pref- 
erences and whims of a particular congregation, is utterly 
to destroy their relation to Christ and to His universal 
Church. And besides all this, the theory that election 
by the people is essential either to the calling or ordi- 
nation of a minister, if consistently carried out, would 
prevent the extension of the Church to heathen lands. 
The whole work of missions, from the days of Paul 
and Barnabas till now, is a standing protest against it. 
The practice of our Independent brethren is in this re- 
spect better than their creed. They ordain home and 
foreign missionaries without popular election. 

III. We come now to the vexed question, Who have 
a right to ordain ? 

We need spend little time to show that this right does 
not belong to private church members, individually 
or collectively. No local congregation of believers is 



126 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

authorized to ordain its own minister. We admit, of 
course, as do the highest of High Churchmen, that all 
church power is conferred upon and resides in the whole 
body of the Church. We do not believe in any hier- 
archy aside from the royal priesthood of believers. But 
it does not follow from this that church power is to be 
exercised by the people indiscriminately. 1 

Both the examples and the precepts of the Scriptures 
teach plainly that ministers are to be ordained by men 
already in the sacred office. All the instructions on the 
subject in the New Testament are contained in the Pas- 
toral Epistles, which are addressed, not to churches, but 
to their office-bearers. The common-sense of mankind 
as shown in civil affairs is against the reasoning which 
infers the right of the people to ordain, from the ad- 
mitted fact that all church power resides in the body 
of the Church. According to the American theory of 
government all political power resides in the people, 
and is to be exercised for their benefit; and this is 
virtually the theory of the British Constitution as illus- 
trated in its history since the expulsion of the Stuarts. 
But it does not follow that every citizen, or every so- 
ciety or assembly of citizens, can take on themselves at 
pleasure the administration of the government, or even 
the inauguration of one whom they have chosen to office. 
The citizens of a New England town have no right to 
administer the oath of office to the town constable. 

1 The powers to bind and to loose, to preach the Word and ad- 
minister the sacraments, reside in the whole body, and are to be 
exercised for the benefit of the whole body ; but they are delegated 
to Christian ministers as the organs and representatives of the body, 
— for which reason, though the powers belong essentially to them, it 
does not follow that all have a right to exercise them. — Gotjlbtjrn : 
Holy Catholic Church, p. 151. 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 127 

Assuming that ordination to the ministry is to be 
performed by those already in office, it remains to de- 
cide what officers possess this right. On this question 
the whole Protestant world is divided, the Episcopal 
denomination standing on one side, and all other de- 
nominations on the other. The question is one of vital 
importance. It underlies the integrity of the visible 
Church, the validity of its sacraments, and the Divine 
authority of its ministers. It comes home to the con- 
science of every one who claims to be a minister of 
Christ and a steward of the mysteries of God. It be- 
hooves him to know whether he is a usurper of the 
sacred office, or whether he is lawfully ordained to it 
according to the design and ordinance of the Supreme 
Head of the Church. Let us endeavor distinctly to un- 
derstand the issue, — to strip it of all extraneous ques- 
tions, and consider it in its naked simplicity. So far 
as Presbyterians are concerned, if we may take our 
standards as a fair expression of our views, there is no 
dispute with our Episcopal brethren — (1) In regard to 
the existence of the visible Church as a Divine and 
perpetual institution in the world ; nor as to the duty 
of all Christians to labor and pray for its visible unity ; 
nor as to the sin of schism or unnecessary divisions. 
(2) Neither is there any dispute between us about the 
infallible inspiration and plenary authority of the Apos- 
tles as Christ's agents in the organization and establish- 
ment of the Church ; nor about the fact that in fulfilment 
of Christ's promise there has been an unbroken succes- 
sion from the Apostles of an order of men called and 
authorized to rule the Church, preach the Word, and 
administer the sacraments ; nor about the necessity of 
ordination by prayer and the laying on of hands as the 
formal conference and seal of ministerial authority. 



128 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

(3) Neither do we differ in regard to the nature and 
efficacy of the sacraments, to be administered only by 
ministers of the Word lawfully ordained, as the outward 
signs, seals, and conveyance of inward and spiritual 
grace. Doubtless there are many in the Presbyterian 
Church who hold the mere remembrance theory of the 
Lord's Supper, and regard baptism as only an outward 
form of consecration. And so also there are in the 
Episcopal Church all shades of opinion, from the bald- 
est Zwinglianism to the opus ojperatum and mechanical 
theory of Eomanism. But the Presbyterian and Epis- 
copal standards are at one on this subject. There is 
just as much of the doctrine of sacramental grace in 
the one as in the other. They both teach that the 
sacraments are " effectual means of salvation," that the 
Lord's Supper is " the communion of the body and blood 
of Christ," and that baptism is "the sign and seal of 
regeneration and engrafting into Christ, and that even 
to infants." 

(4) Nor do we differ as to the authority of the Church, 
in the exercise of a wise discretion, and in conformity 
to the circumstances of different times and countries, to 
institute rites and ceremonies, provided nothing is done 
contrary to Scripture, and nothing aside from Scripture 
is insisted on as necessary to salvation ; nor as to the 
right of the Church under the same conditions to confer 
special functions upon her office-bearers, as human ex- 
pedients for her government, such as the duties assigned 
to synodical missionaries and superintendents, modera- 
tors of ecclesiastical assemblies, whether temporary or 
permanent, and overseers of large dioceses or districts 
of the Church, including more than one congregation. 
What then is the contention between us ? It relates 
simply to the question who have the right to ordain 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 129 

men to the Christian ministry. They say it belongs 
exclusively to diocesan bishops, who, as a distinct order, 
are the official successors of the Apostles. We say it 
belongs to presbyters, who are the only bishops recog- 
nized in the New Testament. This is the core of the 
whole controversy. 1 

1 In this discussion we should guard ourselves against the " fatal 
imposture and force of words." Writers on both sides of this con- 
troversy use words in a double sense. This is the case with the 
phrase " apostolic succession," which may mean either a succession 
of Apostles, or a succession of ministers from the Apostles. In the 
former sense we reject, but in the latter sense we believe in, apos- 
tolic succession. The same is true of the word "bishop." We 
have no difficulty in accepting Cyprian's favorite maxim : " Ecclesia 
est in episcopo," when we couple it with the no less authoritative 
saying of Jerome : "Idem ergo presbyter qui est episcopus ; " "pres- 
byter " and " bishop " being the generic and synonymous terms by 
which the Scripture describes the authority Christ has instituted in 
His Church for her edification. In the same way we could adopt such 
statements as these : " That the ministry is derived from Christ, and 
is perpetuated through episcopal ordination;" that "the Apostles 
ordained a bishop over each newly erected church ; " that " the order 
of bishops is essential to the outward being of the Church " (Blunt's 
Annotated Prayer-Book, p. 150). It would not be fair, however, 
for us to make such statements without qualification, because we use 
the word "bishop" in its Scripture sense of "overseer," and as 
synonymous with " presbyter ; " whereas our Episcopal friends use 
the same word under the imposed and non-scriptural sense of dio- 
cesan bishop, as descriptive of an order of officers entirely distinct 
from presbyters. We admit, of course, that the Apostles were bish- 
ops, because the greater includes the less, and the exercise of all 
church power was vested in them. Peter and John expressly call 
themselves presbyters, elders, or bishops, — in the Scripture sense 
of the words. But we deny that " the apostolate was in substance 
an episcopate ; " the episcopal functions of the Apostles were a very 
small part of their office. We deny that " their miraculous powers 
belonged to their persons and were separable from their office ; " 
the powers to work miracles were part of their endowments for their 
official work, as their commission expressly declares ; they were, as 



130 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

It is admitted on both sides (as Mr, Gore contends in 
his recent work on " The Church and the Ministry ") 
"that Christ in founding His Church founded also a 
ministry in the Church in the persdn of His Apostles ; 
that these Apostles had a temporary function in their 
capacity as founders under Christ, and as witnesses of 
His resurrection ; and that underlying this temporary 
function was another, — a pastorate of souls and a stew- 
ardship of Divine mysteries, which was intended to 
become perpetual." 1 

In all this Dr. Witherow, the latest writer on the 
other side, fully agrees. He shows conclusively that 
the ministry was not derived from the Church, but from 
Christ; 2 that this ministry included both temporary 
and permanent agencies ; that the apostleship includes 
all minor offices in itself ; 3 the Apostles were the first 

Paul calls them, " the signs of an Apostle." There is the same am- 
biguity in the word Cf apostle." It is sometimes used in Scripture 
to designate the office of the Twelve, and sometimes applied in its 
etymological meaning to any one sent to perform a particular duty. 
Thus Epaphroditus, whom the Philippian Church sent to Paul in 
prison, is called v/agw diroa-roKov, which is rendered in our English 
version "your messenger" (Phil. ii. 25). So also in 2 Cor. viii. 23, 
those whom Paul sent to the church at Corinth are called aTrovrokoi 
ckkXtjo-lcop, which our translators have properly rendered " messen- 
gers of the churches." 

In the "Didache," or " Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," the word 
"apostle" is used simply to describe a travelling missionary, who 
was forbidden to remain more than two days in one place. And in 
this we have a clear proof that at the time the Didache was written, 
there were no successors of the Apostles in the technical sense of the 
name, and no office in the Church corresponding to the modern 
diocesan bishop. 

1 Gore on the Church and the Ministry, p. 69. 

2 Witherow's Form of the Christian Temple, p. 12. 

8 Under the head of temporary agencies we include not only 
Apostles, Prophets, and Evangelists, but the various spiritual gifts 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 131 

ministers of Christ ; and all other ministers are, in 
fact, their successors in all those functions of their 
office which were intended to be perpetual. If this 
were all that is meant by "apostolic succession," we 
should have no difficulty in adopting either the doctrine 
or its name. But Mr. Gore and those whom he repre- 
sents incorporate with it two assumptions, for which 
there is no warrant in Scripture, and no proof in re- 
corded facts either in the New Testament or in the 
earliest Christian writings. First, they assume that the 
Twelve Apostles were the Divinely appointed " Deposi- 
taries " of all official grace in the Church ; and secondly, 
that from them, as from a sacred fountain, the grace of 
office, without which no ministerial act is valid, can be 
transmitted only through diocesan bishops descending 
in regular succession from the Apostles, and possessing 
the exclusive right and power of ordination. This is 
what is meant by " the historic episcopate," which the 
Episcopal Church co-ordinates with the Holy Scriptures 
and with the administration of the sacraments, in their 
overture for the reunion of Christendom. 1 We give 
them full credit for sincerity, and freely admit that if 

or charisms, with which so many of the first Christians were en- 
dowed. The presence of these men and the supernatural gifts, of 
which they were possessed in such variety and abundance, consti- 
tute the distinctive characteristic of the Church in the New Testa- 
ment age. . . . 

In the discharge of the Divine commission, with which they were 
entrusted, the Apostles preached Christianity to Jew and Gentile, 
planted churches, and guided and governed the churches which they 
set up. In doing so they discharged all the duties which ordinary 
ministers perform. — Ibid., pp. 13, 17. 

1 These proposals, as revised by the Lambeth Conference, are as 
follows: "That in the opinion of this Conference the following 
articles supply a basis on which approach may be, by God's blessing, 



132 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

their claim could be sustained by Scripture, which " con- 
tains all things necessary to salvation," we should be 
bound joyfully to accept their proposals. But before 
the tribunal of God's Word we dare not do so. And 
our hesitation is greatly confirmed by the admissions 
and contradictions of their own best writers in their 
interpretation of Scripture on this subject. 

We have no disposition to dispute about words, still 
less would we take advantage of any inconsistency in 
the use of them by our Episcopal brethren. It is not 
always easy to understand them. But we are warranted 
in saying that none of them advocate a succession of 
Apostles in the full meaning of the title. Thus even 
Blunt, though he affirms that the H apostolate was in 
substance an episcopate," admits immediately afterwards 
that " their extraordinary powers and the apostolate it- 
self ceased with the death of the Apostles." x We might 
ask, If the apostolate ceased, did not the substance of 
it cease also ? But the learned annotator comes back 
again to his original position that the substance of the 
apostolate is an episcopate. He affirms that " the 
Apostles ordained a bishop over each newly organized 
church; and these chief pastors or bishops inherited the 

made towards Home Reunion : (1) The Holy Scriptures of the Old 
and New Testament, as containing all things necessary to salvation 
and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith. (2) The Apos- 
tles' Creed as the baptismal symbol, and the Nicene Creed as the 
sufficient statement, of Christian faith. (3) The two sacraments or- 
dained by Christ Himself, — Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, — 
ministered with unfailing use of Christ's Words of Institution, and 
of the Elements ordained by Him. (4) The Historic Episcopate, 
locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the vary- 
ing needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of 
His Church." 

1 Annotated Prayer-Book, p. 530. 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 133 

powers of ordination, government, and church censures, 
which were the ordinary parts of the apostolic office." 
Now, this statement just as it stands is good Presby- 
terian doctrine, provided the word " bishop " is used in 
its Scripture sense as interchangeable with " presbyter." 
But this is not the author's meaning. By " bishops " he 
means an order of men distinct from and superior to 
presbyters, inheriting from the Apostles, by right of 
official succession, the exclusive possession of the power 
of ordination and government in the Church. And this 
is the head and front of the contention between us. 
Here we join issue in the question of fact. 

Is it not remarkable, and a strong presumption against 
the Episcopal theory, that the power of ordination is 
never once mentioned in the instructions Christ gave 
to the Apostles, never once asserted by the Apostles 
themselves, and that not one clear and indisputable 
instance of its exercise by Apostles alone is mentioned 
in Scripture ? If they were, in the intention of Christ 
and in their own consciousness of their position, the 
head of a long succession of ordainers, a succession on 
whose integrity depends the very existence of the visi- 
ble Church, the validity of the sacraments and the right 
of men to administer them, is it credible that the chief 
thing for which this succession was established should 
never be mentioned by Christ or by themselves ? 

This, however, is only a negative argument. The 
Saviour and His Apostles may have said and done 
many things not recorded in Scripture. We are willing 
and anxious to accept all facts, whether recorded in 
Scripture or in other histories, and all good and neces- 
sary inferences from them. There are only two grounds 
on which the claims of diocesan episcopacy can be 
sustained : (1) a succession, in fact, of an order of men 



134 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

superior in office to presbyters, having the exclusive 
right to ordain, established by the Apostles themselves ; or 
(2) the custom of the Church, introduced after the death 
of the Apostles and without their sanction. Most Epis- 
copal writers strangely confound these two grounds, and 
play fast and loose between them. If, indeed, the cus- 
tom could be traced back to the days of the Apostles, 
the inference would be irresistible that it has their sanc- 
tion. But if there is any interval, however short, be- 
tween their death and its establishment, its Divine and 
binding authority is gone. An interval of one year 
breaks the chain as effectually as though it were a thou- 
sand years. The testimony of the Fathers is contra- 
dictory. Jerome is in open conflict with Cyril. If our 
opponents may reject the witness of the one, we have 
the same right to reject the witness of the other. 1 

It is admitted on all hands that if we leave out the 
Apostles, the only two classes of permanent church 
officers mentioned in Scripture are bishops and. deacons 
(Phil. i. 1). If by bishops be meant only diocesan bish- 
ops, then there were no presbyters. If both diocesan 
bishops and presbyters are included under the one title, 
then bishops and presbyters are not two distinct orders. 2 

1 It is not pretended that there is any explicit patristic testimony 
for the existence of diocesan episcopacy until at least a century after 
the death of the Apostles. The apostolic Fathers bring little aid 
and comfort to our opponents. The recently discovered " Teaching 
of the Twelve Apostles " and the Epistles of Clement do not help 
them. The New Testament is the only extant book which tells us 
historically what was done in the Church in the lifetime of the 
Apostles. See Appendix, Lecture V. (A). 

2 Our Episcopal friends stand at this point between Scylla and 
Charybdis. But let us not exult over them, for we stand on a simi- 
lar position in regard to ruling elders. While they claim three 
orders in the ministry, we claim three orders of church officers. 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 135 

It is admitted by all candid writers on the subject 
that the words " presbyter " and " bishop," as used in the 
New Testament, are synonymous and interchangeable. 1 
Some of the ablest Episcopal writers candidly acknowl- 
edge this. 2 " The one thing needful," says Mr. Haddan, 
than whom we know of no abler or more consistent 
advocate on his side of the question, "to make the 
truth clear, is simply the straightforward acceptance of 
what is manifestly the plain usage of the New Testa- 
ment ; namely, the employment of eWo7<;o7ro? and irpe- 

" The ordinary and perpetual officers of the Church are bishops 
or pastors, the representatives of the people usually styled ruling 
elders aud deacons" (Form of Government, iii. 2). 

But to justify this enumeration we must make ruling elders a 
subordinate class in the one order of presbyters, or else we must 
admit that their office rests upon the custom of the Church under 
the general Scripture description of helps and governments (1 Cor. 
xii. 28). If the distinction between presbyters and diocesan bishops 
is based upon the same broad ground, we have no dispute with those 
who insist upon it. They only distinguish upward, while we distin- 
guish downward. 

1 This presbyter-bishop of the New Testament is found in all 
ages of the Church and in all lands. Herein is the true historic 
succession of the ministry in the unbroken chain of these ordained 
presbyters. Herein is the world-wide government which is carried 
on through them. This is the one form of church government that 
bears the mark of catholicity, that is semper, ubique, et ab omnibus. 
— Dr. Bbjggs : Whither, p. 230. 

2 On this point Bishop Lightfoot is very explicit. " It is a fact 
now generally recognized by theologians of all shades of opinion 
that in the language of the New Testament the same officer in the 
Church is called indifferently ' bishop ' (iirlcrKOTros) and ' elder,' or 
' presbyter ' (7rpecr/3irrepos)." After elaborately proving this, he adds : 
" Nor is it only in the apostolic writings that this identity is found. 
Saint Clement of Rome wrote probably in the last decade of the first 
century, and in his language the terms are still convertible" (Light- 
foot on Epistle to Philippians, p. 95). See also Gore on the Church 
and the Ministry, p. 136. 



136 THE MINISTRY' AND SACRAMENTS. 

aPvrepos as equivalent terms. 1 The same author further 
admits that to make the presbytery who laid hands on 
Timothy an assembly of diocesan bishops, or to insist 
that the Ephesian elders, whom Paul declared to be 
bishops by the appointment of the Holy Ghost, were 
bishops in the Episcopal sense of the word, " are des- 
perate devices." 2 We fully agree with this author that 
there is no Scripture authority for the office of diocesan 
bishop, unless it can be shown that it is the perpetua- 
tion of the apostolate. Diocesan bishops are either suc- 
cessors of the Apostles as apostles in their peculiar 
functions, or else their authority rests solely on the 
custom of the Church, without scriptural or apostolic 
sanction. 3 

1 Haddan on Apostolic Succession, p. 74. 

2 Ibid., p. 75. 

3 When the end for which any office is instituted is accomplished, 
and the mode by which men have been inducted iuto it is no longer 
in use, and the attestations of its authority can no longer be pro- 
duced, the couclusion that the office itself has ceased to exist is irre- 
sistible. The application of these simple tests to the question, 
whether the Apostles as such have any successors, is easy. The 
Apostles all received their appointment directly. The original 
twelve were neither chosen nor ordained by men ; Christ made them 
apostles. Paul claims in this respect to be on an equality with 
the others. " Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by 
Jesus Christ" (Gal. i. 1). "The lot fell upon Matthias; and he 
was numbered with the eleven Apostles" (Acts i. 26). There was 
no human election or ordination in his case ; it was an essential if 
not the chief design of the Apostles' peculiar office that they should 
be eye-witnesses of the resurrection. This is the avowed end for 
which Matthias was chosen. To qualify Paul for the same office the 
risen Saviour appeared to him on the way to Damascus ; and hence, 
when he would vindicate his title to the apostlesbip, he says, "Am 
I not an apostle ? Have I not seen the Lord Jesus Christ ? " 
(1 Cor. ix. 1.) It was an essential qualification of the Apostles for 
their distinctive office that they should be endowed with power to 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 137 

The best representative of Episcopacy, and the most 
generally accepted authority in its defence, is Eichard 
Hooker, To this day he retains the respect of all par- 
ties in the Episcopal Church. We freely accord to him 
the title of "judicious," and have an unbounded admira- 
tion for his exposition of that law whose seat is the 
bosom of God, and whose voice is the harmony of the 
world. His whole argument on the question before us 
is summed up in the following passage : — 

" The form of regiment established by the Apostles at first 
was that the laity or people should be subject unto a col- 
lege of ecclesiastical persons which were in every city estab- 
lished for that purpose. These in their writings they term, 
sometimes presbyters, sometimes bishops. To take one church 
out of a number for a pattern of what the rest were, the pres- 

work miracles. Hence Paul says, " Truly the signs of an apostle 
were wrought among you" (2 Cor. xii. 12). Now, we submit that 
it is a manifest absurdity to say that men who have not received the 
direct appointment of an apostle, and are not qualified to perform the 
specific work of an apostle, and are not able to show the signs of an 
apostle, are invested by Divine right with the apostolic office. 

Dr. Lightfoot, Bishop of Durham, in the essay on the Christian 
Ministry appended to his Commentary on Philippians, says : " The 
opinion hazarded by Theodoret and adopted by many later writers, 
that the same officers in the Church who were first called apostles 
came afterward to be designated as bishops, is baseless. . . . The 
Apostle, like the Prophet or the Evangelist, held no local office. He 
was essentially, as his name denotes, a missionary moving about 
from place to place. ... It is not therefore to the apostle that we 
must look for the prototype of the bishop." 

" When I see bishops, immediately sent of God, infallibly assisted 
by the Holy Ghost, travelling to the remotest kingdom to preach 
the Gospel in their own language to the infidel nations, and confirm- 
ing their doctrine by undoubted miracles, I shall believe them to be 
the Apostles' true successors in the apostolic office " (John Owen's 
Plea for Scripture Ordination, p. 56). 



138 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

byters of Ephesus, as it is in the history of their departure 
from the Apostle Paul at Miletum, are said to have wept 
abundantly all, — which speech doth show them to have been 
many. And by the Apostle's exhortation it may appear that 
they had not each his several flock to feed, but were in com- 
mon appointed to feed that one flock, the Church at Ephesus, 
for which cause the phrase of his speech is this, attendite 
gregi, ' look all to that one flock over which the Holy Ghost 
hath made you bishops.' These persons ecclesiastical being 
termed as then presbyters and bishops both, were all sub- 
ject unto Paul, as to an higher governor appointed of God 
to be over them. But forasmuch as the Apostles could not 
themselves be present in all churches, and as Saint Paul fore- 
told the presbyters at Ephesus that there ' would rise up 
from among their own selves men speaking perverse things 
to draw disciples after them,' there did grow in short time 
among the governors of each church those emulations, strifes, 
and contentions whereof there could be no sufficient remedy 
provided, except, according unto the order of Jerusalem already 
begun, some one was endued with episcopal authority over 
the rest, which one, being resident, might keep them in order, 
and have pre-eminence or principality in those things wherein 
the equality of many agents was the cause of disorder and 
trouble. This one president or governor among the rest 
had his known authority established a long time before that 
settled difference of name and title took place, whereby such 
alone were called bishops. And therefore, in the book of 
Saint John's Eevelation, they are entitled ' angels.' " 1 

Now this is the best that even Hooker can do ; and 
subsequent writers on the same side have only reiter- 
ated his arguments with the variations of the kaleido- 
scope. The first thing that must strike a candid reader 
of this passage is the circularity of its reasoning. It 
draws absolute conclusions from premises which are at 
1 Hooker, Ecc. Pol., book vii. chap. v. sect. 1, 2. 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 139 

best but probable, and then it doubles back the conclu- 
sions to strengthen the premises. The author agrees at 
the outset to stake the whole question of the Scripture 
authority for diocesan bishops upon the case of Timothy 
and the church at Ephesus. This is candid and fair ; 
if Timothy was not a diocesan bishop and a successor 
of the Apostles, resident at Ephesus, there are none 
such in Scripture. But the argument has not proceeded 
two steps before James is lugged in with the bald asser- 
tion, as though it needed no proof, that the order of 
diocesan episcopacy was already established in his per- 
son in Jerusalem before Timothy's time. Why, then, 
did not our author begin at Jerusalem ? If the episco- 
pacy of James is so indisputable that it can be adduced 
without proof to establish an antecedent probability 
that Timothy was made diocesan at Ephesus, why not 
rest the whole discussion upon James and the church 
at Jerusalem ? Any one who reads the record in Acts 
xv. will see that it is less available for diocesan episco- 
pacy than what we know of Timothy. A chain is no 
stronger than its weakest link, and this first link is very 
weak. We admit, of course, that James and all the 
other Apostles, whether in Jerusalem or anywhere else, 
had all the authority that has ever been claimed for 
diocesan bishops ; but how does this prove that they 
transmitted this authority to a succession of such 
bishops ? 

Again, our author asserts that the only remedy for 
schismatical contentions among presbyters is their sub- 
ordination to bishops superior in rank and authority to 
themselves. But where is the proof of this ? Not in 
the New Testament ; such a remedy for schism is no- 
where mentioned. Not in history ; for, as a matter of 
fact, the establishment of diocesan episcopacy has not 



140 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

brought peace and unity. There are to-day, to say noth- 
ing of the past, in the bosom of the Episcopal Church 
diversities of doctrine and practice quite as broad, and 
controversies quite as bitter, and the speaking of things 
quite as perverse, as any that prevail among other de- 
nominations of Christians. Moreover, there is a fatal 
superfluity in this argument of the " only remedy," — it 
proves too much. It constantly points and urges toward 
Rome. For if the only remedy for contention among 
presbyters is a diocesan bishop, what remedy is there 
for strife among bishops, whom all history proves to be 
men of like passions, but archbishops ; and what cure 
for the strife of archbishops but patriarchs; and who 
shall keep the patriarchs in order, but the pope ? This 
plea of the " only remedy " runs through and unifies the 
whole system of the Eomish hierarchy ; if it is good in 
its first application, it is equally good in the last. And 
thus, as Milton says, it is " the stirrup by which Anti- 
christ mounts into the saddle." 1 

But to our mind the conclusive proof that this is not 
the only remedy, and not a Divinely appointed remedy 
at all, is the consideration that Paul did not apply it in 
his treatment of recorded cases. Take, for example, the 
desperate case of the church at Corinth. It is nothing 
to the purpose to say that Paul was the bishop of that 
church, and kept the presbyters in order by his author- 
ity, because the Apostle was not resident at Corinth, and 
manifestly did not fulfil the conditions upon which the 
efficacy of the remedy depends, according to Hooker's 
statement. In the Epistles to the Corinthians, which 
are full of rebuke against division and strife, there is 
not a word about bishops. 2 In the case of Ephesus, of 

1 An Apology for Smectymnuns. 

2 In the year 96, after the death of Paul, Clement of Rome wrote 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 141 

which we have an explicit account, the remedy pre- 
scribed by Paul is entirely inconsistent with the present 
or prospective existence of any higher order than pres- 
byters in the permanent ministry of the Church. 

The Apostle meets the elders of that church at Mile- 
tus. He informs them that after his departure conten- 
tions and strifes would arise among them, which in his 
absence could not be controlled by his authority. Now, 
if ever, is the time to apply, or at least to prescribe, the 
"only remedy." Timothy, his supposed successor in 
office, was present (Acts xx. 4). Does the Apostle point 
to him and say, "Here is my successor in office, 
appointed to rule over you as the only remedy for 
schismatical contentions ? " No ! but he says to the 
presbyters in the presence of Timothy, " Take heed to 
yourselves and to the flock over which the Holy Ghost 
has made you bishops." So the Eevised New Testament 
honestly renders the passage, substituting the word 
"bishop" for "overseers," which was the weak evasion 
of King James's translators. Now is this conceivable 
upon the supposition that Timothy was at this very 
time diocesan of the church at Ephesus ? What ! lay 
the whole episcopal function upon the presbyters in 
the presence of their own bishop, and declare that this 
is the appointment of the Holy Ghost ? If it be an- 
swered that Timothy was made sole bishop of Ephesus 
at some time after this interview, this starts a fresh 
crop of questions and difficulties. Where is the proof 

his epistle to the church at Corinth. It is evident from this epistle 
that at the time it was written there were no officers in the church 
at Corinth but deacons and presbyters, whom Clement also calls 
"bishops." This demonstrates that the episcopal office, as some- 
thing distinct from that of presbyters, was not ordained by the 
Apostle at Corinth. The same is clearly shown by the epistle of 
Polycarp in regard to the church at Philippi. 



142 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

that Timothy was ever made bishop at Ephesus ? The 
subscription to the Second Epistle to Timothy — made 
by an unknown hand at an uncertain time (which the 
Eevised Version properly expunges) — and the testi- 
mony of Eusebius in the third century, are nothing to 
the purpose. Hooker quotes them; but even omitting 
the distinction between a Scripture and a diocesan 
bishop, we cannot accept them as of any value in this 
argument, for our inquest is for Scripture proof. The 
words in 1 Tim. i. 3, "As I besought thee to abide still 
at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou 
mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine," 
certainly do not imply that Timothy was ordained to 
the office of supreme bishop in Ephesus. And even if 
they did, it is evident that he did not hold any such 
office at the time when Paul, in his presence, told the 
elders that the Holy Ghost had made them bishops over 
that flock. It is equally plain that this was not the 
occasion when Paul besought him to abide in Ephesus, 
for the Apostle was now going to Jerusalem, and not 
into Macedonia. And it is further evident, from the 
record itself, that the Apostle was not in Ephesus at 
any period subsequent to this interview with the elders 
at Miletus. On this point his own words are conclu- 
sive. He says : " Behold, I know that ye all, among 
whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall 
see my face no more''' (Acts xx. 25). He knew it. Was 
he mistaken in what he so confidently asserted ? Would 
he have affirmed this so positively if, indeed, it had 
been, as some presume to say, only an " expectation " 
and " a human inference from the danger which he knew 
to be before him " ? 1 We cannot think so. 2 Paul was 

1 Conybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of Panl, ii. 241. 

2 " Some suppose that this was merely an opinion or surmise of 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 143 

never at Ephesus again. His beseeching Timothy to 
remain there must be referred to some previous depar- 
ture, when he went, not to Jerusalem, but into Mace- 
donia, and must be interpreted in consistency with the 
fact that in his last interview with the presbyters of 
that church he declared that the Holy Ghost had made 
them bishops over that flock. To assert without proof 
that this appointment of the Holy Ghost was afterward 
revoked as an insufficient remedy for the evils which 
Paul foresaw and to which he applied it, is a purely 
gratuitous assumption. Nor are these facts in any way 
modified by the Epistle to the Ephesians, written, as 
all the critics agree, by Paul subsequently to the inter- 
view at Miletus. In that epistle Timothy's name is 
not mentioned. Is this consistent with the supposi- 
tion that he was sole bishop there ? Can any intelligent 
Episcopalian conceive of an inspired apostle, or any one 
who believes in diocesan Episcopacy and understands 
the courtesies which prevail among gentlemen, writing 
a letter of religious instruction to the diocese of Long 
Island, without even mentioning the name of his hon- 
ored head, Bishop Littlejohn ? 

From Timothy and the church at Ephesus Hooker 
makes a wide step and a long link in his chain of rea- 
soning to the angels of the seven churches of Asia. 

Paul, without Divine communication or direction ; but this idea was 
expressed in verse 22 by the phrase, c not knowing the things which 
shall befall me there,' i. e., in Jerusalem, — and it surely cannot be 
assumed that ' knowing ' and ' not knowing ' mean precisely the same 
thing. If ' not knowing' there denotes that it was hidden from him 
and remained uncertain, then ' I know ' must mean that it had been 
revealed in some way, and was certain. To attach the same sense to 
directly opposite expressions, in the same context and in reference 
to the same subject, is to nullify the use of language." — Alexander 
on the Acts, in loco. 



144 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

Let us admit at once that by the angels are meant, not 
the churches themselves, as many commentators plausi- 
bly contend, but individual men and presiding officers. 
Does this prove that they were diocesan bishops ? What, 
seven diocesan bishops in the little province of Asia, 
and each of them having only one church in his dio- 
cese ! Why, they appear to us to be nothing more 
than pastors and permanent moderators of parochial 
presbyteries. 

We are compelled, therefore, as many of the most 
eminent bishops and scholars of the Episcopal Church 
have been, to adopt Jerome's account of the historic 
origin and prevalence of episcopacy. 

" As, therefore, presbyters do know that the custom of the 
Church makes them subject to the bishop which is set over 
them, so let bishops know that custom, rather than the truth 
of any ordinance of the Lord's, maketh them greater than 
the rest, and that with common advice they ought to govern 
the Church." 1 

But now suppose we admit, for the sake of the argu- 
ment, that diocesan bishops are of Divine appointment, 
and that the apostolic office is perpetuated in them: 
does it follow 7 that they have the exclusive right to 

1 Jerome on the Epistle to Titus, quoted by Hooker, Ecc. Pol., 
book vii. 5, 8. 

Hooker labors hard to reconcile this testimony with the doc- 
trine oijure divino episcopacy. But that he does not succeed to 
the satisfaction of the most zealous Episcopalians is evident from 
the fact that many of their later writers take the opposite course, 
and impeach the credibility of Jerome as a witness. Thus Haddan 
says : " The sweeping implications of Jerome in the teeth of the prac- 
tice of the universal Church only throw discredit upon himself, as 
dealing in over-wide statements^ (Apostolic Succession, p. 120). 
This is setting us a very bad example of disrespect for the testimony 
of the Fathers. 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 145 

ordain men to the Christian ministry ? By no means. 
This is a separate doctrine, and requires a distinct proof. 
How meagre and inconclusive is the alleged proof, ap- 
pears in the fact that the passage of Scripture most 
frequently and dogmatically insisted upon as conveying 
such power is the saying of Christ: "As My Father 
hath sent Me, so send I you." " This," says Mr. Blunt, 
" is the great charter bestowing the exclusive power of 
ordination upon bishops." *■ But surely there must be a 
large reading between the lines to see any such exclu- 
sive power in this charter. The learned author might 
as well say it bestows upon the Apostles the exclusive 
power to preach the Gospel or administer the sacra- 
ments. The fact is that it simply asserts their Divine 
mission, without specifying any of the purposes for 
which they were sent. The whole reasoning is in a 
vicious circle. It begins with the promise of demonstra- 
tion, and ends with begging the question. The only 
sources from which we can ascertain what the Apostles 
were empowered to do, are the instructions given to them 
by our Lord, their own claims as to their authority, and 
the inspired record of their doings. In their recorded 
instructions x there is not one word about ordination ; so 
far as the New Testament informs us, they never claimed 
the power of ordination as belonging exclusively to 
themselves ; while they performed the duties of the 
apostolate, the exercise of this power was not confined 
exclusively to them; and therefore, even if we admit 
that the apostolic office is perpetuated in the Church, 
there is no Scripture ground for including the power of 
ordination among its peculiar functions. 

Admitting that Timothy and Titus were diocesan 
bishops, and, as such, successors of the Apostles, there 

1 Annotated Prayer-Book, p. 543. 
10 



146 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

is nothing to show that they had the exclusive right to 
ordain in their respective dioceses. The avowed pur- 
pose for which Timothy was left in Ephesus was not to 
ordain, but to " charge some that they teach no other 
doctrine " than what Paul had taught. The injunction 
to " lay hands suddenly on no man/' admitting that this 
refers to ordination to the ministry, might be addressed 
to any presbyter, upon the supposition that presbyters 
had the right to ordain, and therefore is no proof that 
presbyters were excluded from the exercise of that 
right. The words addressed to Titus, " For this cause 
left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldst set in order the 
things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every 
city " (Tit. i. 5), are entirely consistent with the theory 
that Titus was presiding elder or moderator of presby- 
tery in Crete, and possessed the power of ordination in 
common with the other members of the body over which 
he presided. It is consistent also with the theory held 
by many that he was a temporary agent or representa- 
tive of Paul, performing a special work in the organi- 
zation of the church in Crete, and that the authority 
with which he was clothed ceased when that work was 
done. 1 Inasmuch as he is never called an apostle, and 
there is no record of his appointment to that office, the 
exercise of the right to ordain does not prove that he 
was an apostle ; it rather proves that the power of 

1 Hooker says : " The Apostles sometimes gave their episcopal 
powers unto others, to exercise as agents only in their stead, and as 
it were by commission from them. Thus Titus and thus Timothy at 
the first, though afterwards endued with apostolical power of their 
owu " (Ecc. Pol., book vii. chap. iv.). But where is the proof that 
they were afterwards endued with apostolical power of their own ? 
" It appeareth," says our author, " in those subscriptions which 
are set upon the Epistle to Titus and the second to Timothy, and 
by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History." These subscriptions, 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 147 

ordination was conferred upon those who were not 
apostles. 

These views are abundantly confirmed by all the 
examples of ordination found in the New Testament. 

If the transaction recorded in Acts (xiii. 1-3) was an 
ordination to office, it is conclusive against the Episco- 
pal theory, because, while one of the ordained was the 
Apostle to the Gentiles, the ordainers were simply 
" prophets and teachers ; " and if they might ordain an 
apostle and those miraculously called to office, much 
more might they do the same for presbyters and those 
whose call is in the ordinary way. 

If, on the other hand, we agree with Haddan and 
other High-Church Episcopal writers that the separa- 
tion of Barnabas and Saul for the work to which the 
Holy Ghost had called them was not an ordination in 
the technical sense, but only an extraordinary solemnity 
upon an extraordinary occasion, 1 — and we think this is 
the true interpretation — this does not affect the force 
and application of the example as against the Episcopal 
theory, for the form of that extraordinary solemnity 
was the form of ordination. They who had the right 
to use these acts of the ordination ceremony upon an 
extraordinary occasion and upon extraordinary subjects, 
had a fortiori the right to use them upon ordinary occa- 
sions and upon such ordinary subjects as a presbyter. 

besides being uninspired additions of uncertain date and authorship, 
do not affirm that Titus and Timothy were apostles or diocesan, 
bishops, but simply bishops, winch we all admit. The testimony of 
Eusebius can hardly be accepted as a Scripture proof " It is the 
conception of a later age which represents Timothy as bishop of 
Ephesus, and Titus as bishop of Crete. Saint Paul's own language 
implies that the position they held was temporary " (Bishop Light- 
foot, on the Christian Ministry, p. 199). 
1 Haddan on Apostolic Succession, p. 84. 



148 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

He who is authorized to sprinkle water upon a child in 
the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
has the right to administer the sacrament of baptism. 
The right to participate by the laying on of hands in 
an ordination service implies and includes the power to 
ordain. 

And this brings us to the crucial case, — the ordina- 
tion of Timothy. There is no question that he was 
ordained in the fullest sense of the word, and that the 
ceremony is described in these two passages : " Neglect 
not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by 
prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the pres- 
bytery " (1 Tim. iv. 14) ; " Wherefore I put thee in 
remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which 
is in thee by the putting on of my hands " (2 Tim. i. 6). 
These two statements describe the same transaction, 1 
and they can be reconciled only by admitting that the 
Apostle and the presbytery were equal participants in 
Timothy's ordination, and had equal authority to per- 
form the ceremony. In the one passage the Apostle 
does not mention himself at all ; it was done by the 
hands of the presbytery. In the other the presbytery 
is not mentioned ; it was done by the hands of the 
Apostle. Each statement is complete in itself as a rec- 
ord of the transaction. What is the legitimate infer- 
ence ? That the hands of the presbytery and the hands 
of the Apostle were, in regard to the power of ordina- 

1 We are aware that this is a disputed point, and that even as 
good a commentator as Bishop Ellicott favors the opinion that the 
first passage describes Timothy's ordination as a presbyter, which is 
supposed to have taken place at Lystra, while the second passage 
describes his consecration as a bishop, which is alleged to have been 
done at Ephesus. This interpretation is quite as good for our argu- 
ment as the other. But it rests upon mere conjecture, and is not 
generally accepted, even by Episcopal writers. 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 149 

tion, interchangeable. Paul acted as the presiding offi- 
cer of presbytery, and yet as one of the presbyters, with 
whom he held the ordaining power in common ; for he, 
with Peter and John, was also an elder. How is the 
force of this inference contravened ? The witnesses are 
not agreed. One says that by the " presbytery " is not 
meant the college of presbyters, but the abstract office 
which was potentially and by eminent domain in the 
Apostles. But the word TrpecrftvT&piov is never used in 
this abstract sense; and besides, how was it possible 
for an office to lay hands on Timothy ? Another says 
the first passage ought to be reconstructed thus : " Neg- 
lect not the gift that is in thee by the prophecy of pres- 
bytery with the laying on of hands, — i. e., the Apostles' 
hands." So Bengel renders it. According to this in- 
terpretation the presbytery took no part whatever in 
the ordination. This method not only does violence to 
the grammatical structure of this passage, but makes all 
Scripture a nose of wax in the hand of destructive criti- 
cism. So far as we know, no respectable defender of 
episcopacy has adopted it. Another makes the pres- 
bytery a college of diocesan bishops, which Haddan calls 
a "desperate device." But desperate as it is, Blunt 
claims for it the highest patristic authority, and the 
testimony of "all the best commentators, ancient and 
modern." 1 And he adds: "The utmost that can be 
claimed for the passage is that priests sometimes, im- 
posed their hands, together with an apostle or bishop." 
But why " sometimes " ? If it was lawful once under 
apostolic sanction, why not always ? And why may we 
not reverse the statement, and say the Apostles some- 

1 Annotated Prayer-Book, p. 543. By this sweeping assumption 
he excludes Alford, Ellicott, Wordsworth, and a host more of Epis- 
copal writers from the category of the " best commentators." 



150 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

times imposed their hands with the presbytery ? The 
one assumption is just as valid as the other. 1 It seems 
to us that the only consistent conclusion from these 
Scripture records, and the only theory which can explain 
the subsequent history of the Church, is that which 
recognizes diocesan Episcopacy as a growth, and not an 
original and positive institution. Whether such growth 
proceeded from germinal principles within the Church, 
or was grafted on it from without ; and whether it was 
justified by the changed conditions of the Church after 
the Apostles' death, — are questions aside from this dis- 
cussion. In the days of the Apostles " presbyter " and 

1 Some Episcopal writers insist strongly upon the alleged distinc- 
tion between the prepositions employed in the two passages nnder 
consideration. The gift that was in Timothy is said to be imparted 
by (Sid) the laying on of the Apostles' hands, and with (nerd) the lay- 
ing on of the hands of the presbytery. This is supposed to indicate 
that the imposition of the Apostles' hands was the instrumental cause 
of the Divine charism, while the imposition of the hands of the pres- 
bytery was simply an accompaniment which added nothing to the 
efficacy of the ordination. (See Blunt's Annotated Prayer-Book, 
p. 543 ; Hobart's Festivals and Fasts, p. 25 ; Haddan on Apostolic 
Succession, p. 84.) This distinction is purely imaginary, and 
would never have been invented but for the necessity of the argu- 
ment. The two prepositions are constantly used in the New Testa- 
ment interchangeably. "Many signs and wonders were done by 
(Std) the Apostles" (Acts ii. 43). "And when Paul and Barnabas 
were come, and gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that 
the Lord had done with (fxerd) them " (Acts xiv. 27). Besides, the 
distinction, even if it were valid, proves too much for those who use 
it. If the laying on of the hands of the presbyters in the case of 
Timothy were simply an accompaniment, and not an essential part of 
the ordination, why do they quote Paul's injunction to Timothy, 
"Lay hands suddenly on no man," as a proof that Timothy had 
power to ordain, and was therefore a bishop? According to their 
own reasoning, Timothy might "lay hands on," and yet exercise no 
ordaining power, and therefore be no bishop. 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 151 

" bishop " were interchangeable names for the same class 
of church officers, who received from the Apostles and 
shared with them the right to ordain others to the 
Christian ministry. They kept and exercised this right 
for a considerable time. But after the death of the 
Apostles and the expiration of their peculiar office, 
when the number of presbyters had greatly increased, 
one was chosen in each city or district, as president 
over the rest, who imposed hands in ordination as the 
head and representative of the presbytery. Out of this 
arrangement grew by degrees the superior dignity and 
exclusive authority of bishops, who increased in power 
and pride with the increasing corruptions of the Church, 
until they not only laid their hands, as ecclesiastical 
superiors, on the heads of presbyters, but set their feet, 
as temporal rulers, on the necks of princes. This is 
the theory of Jerome, adopted by Calvin and by many 
of the most eminent scholars and bishops of the Church 
of England. It is reasserted and illustrated with great 
ability by Mr. Hatch. He affirms that " the episcopate 
grew, by the force of circumstances, in the order of 
Providence, to satisfy a felt want." He professes to 
find " adequate causes not only for the existence of a 
president (among presbyters), but also for his supremacy 
without resorting to what is not a known fact, but only 
a counter-hypothesis, — the hypothesis of a special in- 
stitution." For this view he claims the support of 
Jerome, whom he calls "the earliest and greatest of 
ecclesiastical antiquaries." 2 

1 Bampton Lectures for 1880, p. 98. The same theory is main- 
tained by Bishop Lightfoot. " At the close of the apostolic age the 
traces of the episcopate are few and indistinct. ... If ' bishop ' was at 
first used as a synonym for ' presbyter,' and afterwards came to des- 
ignate the higher officer under whom the presbyter served, the episco- 
pate, properly so called, would seem to have been developed from the 



152 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

The doctrine that the power to ordain belongs exclu- 
sively and by Divine right to diocesan bishops, and its 
necessary corollary that non-episcopal ordination is null 
and void, is new even in the Episcopal Church. It is 
not taught in the Thirty-nine Articles. The English 
Reformers never asserted it in theory or in practice. 1 
There is no trace of it in the writings of Cranmer, 
Parker, Grindal, and Whitgift, the first four Protestant 
Archbishops of Canterbury. If, as some maintain, it was 
asserted by Bancroft, the fifth primate, it is certain that 
he did not undertake to enforce it ; for in the consecra- 
tion of the Scottish bishops he insisted and persuaded 
his colleagues that the non-episcopal ordination they 
had received as presbyters was lawful and sufficient. 2 

We have the testimony of Burnett that in the attempt 
to establish episcopacy in Scotland " the bishops never 
required the Presbyterian ministers there to take epis- 
copal ordination, but only to come and act with them 
in Church judicatories." 3 

Bishop Hall, who wrote the first formal treatise in 
defence of the Divine right of episcopacy, w 7 hich he 
dedicated to Charles I. in 1639, acknowledges the 
validity of non-episcopal ordination, and declares that 
he knows of more than one, ordained without a bishop, 
who had enjoyed promotions and livings in the Church 

subordinate office. In other words, the episcopate was formed, not 
out of the apostolic order by localization, but out of the presbyterial 
by elevation ; and the title which originally was common to all, came 
at length to be appropriated to the chief among them " (Lightfoot, 
The Christian Ministry, p. 196). 

1 See Keble's Preface to Hooker's Ecc. Polity, p. 30. 

2 Archbishop Spottiswoode's History of the Church of Scotland, 
iii. 209. 

8 Burnett's Vindication of the Church of Scotland, p. 84 (Lon- 
don, 1696).- 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 153 

of England, " without any exception against the lawful- 
ness of their calling." * Blunt, in his " Annotated Prayer- 
Book ," admits that up to the days of the Commonwealth 
non-episcopal ordination was recognized as valid in the 
Church of England. He gives a list of those who 
obtained preferment without episcopal ordination, and 
loftily says : " They show the manner in which the 
Church of England was sagaciously leavened with for- 
eign Protestantism by those who wished to reduce it to 
the same abject level." 2 

The first systematic attempt to enforce exclusive 
episcopal ordination was made by Laud, the sixth 
Archbishop of Canterbury, whose zeal for the Mitre 
and the Crown, which he regarded as inseparable, was 
like the wrath of Achilles, — " the direful spring of 
woes unnumbered." The high-handed tyranny and 
bloody cruelty of that attempt were among the chief 
causes of the revolution which brought both the king 
and his ecclesiastical prime-minister to the scaffold. 
But the seed sowed by Laud did not perish at his death. 
In the violent reaction of the Eestoration both his 
political and his ecclesiastical theories were dominant ; 
and the party in power made full use of their oppor- 

1 Hall's Works, ix. 536. 

2 See Annotated Prayer-Book, p. 30. For further and abundant 
proof that Presbyterian ordination was recognized in the Church of 
England up to the time of Charles I., our readers are referred to 
Dr. Pisher's article in the "New Englander " for 1874, to Dr. Hodge's 
" Church Polity," to Goode's " Non-Episcopal Orders," to vol. i. of 
Schaff's "Creeds of Christendom," to the excellent article of Dr. R. 
B. Welch on " Christian Unity and the Historic Episcopate," in the 
" Presbyterian Review " for July, 1888, and to the recent lecture 
of Dr. Fisher on " The Validity of Non-Episcopal Ordination," pub- 
lished by Charles Scribner's Sons. The historic proof on this point 
is abundant and conclusive. 



154: THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

tunity to avenge their own wrongs and to enforce their 
doctrines. The solemn promises of Charles II. to those 
without whose aid he never could have attained to the 
throne of his fathers were ruthlessly broken. The 
Presbyterians and moderate Episcopalians were be- 
trayed and trampled on. By the Act of Uniformity, in 
1662, episcopal ordination was made essential not only 
to preferment in the Church of England, but to the per- 
formance of any ministerial function in the land ; and 
the Act was enforced with relentless cruelty. " The 
clergy made war on schism with such vigor that they 
had little leisure to make war on vice." 1 Such men as 
Howe and Baxter were imprisoned for preaching con- 
trary to Act of Parliament. Two thousand of the best 
ministers of the land were expelled from their benefices. 
The effect of this was not merely the loss of their ser- 
vices and the extinction for the time of their evangelical 
spirit in the Church, but it was the final overthrow of 
the party which from the beginning had tried to bring 
the Church of England into closer fellowship with all the 
Eeformed Churches, and into more complete harmony 
with the religious instincts of the nation. " The Church 
of England stood from that moment isolated and alone 
among all the churches of the Christian world." 2 

This separation was effected in 1662 by the intro- 
duction into the preface of the Ordinal of the following 
sentence, as it now stands in the Episcopal Prayer- 
Book in England and in this country : " jSTo man shall 
be accounted or taken to be a lawful bishop, priest, or 
deacon in this Church, or suffered to execute any of the 
said functions, except he be called, tried, and admitted 
thereto according to the form hereafter following, or 
hath had episcopal consecration or ordination." 

1 Macaulay's History, i. 165. 

2 Green's History of the English People, iv. 364. 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 155 

What is the implication of this law in regard to non- 
episcopal ordination ? Does it involve the opinion and 
warrant the inference that those who have not been or- 
dained by a diocesan bishop have no Divine right to 
exercise any of the functions of a minister in the Church 
of Christ ? We think it certaiuly does. They who are 
called High Churchmen candidly say so. We can 
readily understand them, and can respect both their 
candor and their consistency, whatever we may think 
of their opinions and of the attitude they feel compelled 
to assume. The history of the law and the -uniform 
practice of the Episcopal Church in England and 
America since it was adopted confirms the High 
Church interpretation. The Episcopal Church receives 
priests from the Greek and Koman Catholic churches as 
having already received a valid ordination, while she 
uniformly re-ordains ministers coming to her from 
other Protestant denominations. 

But surely Episcopalians do not regard this as a re- 
ordination. The lowest of Low Churchmen, we venture 
to say, would not admit that they ordain over again those 
who have already received a lawful and valid ordination. 
The Church of England and her daughter in this country 
" hold no other orders lawful than those ministered by 
bishops, and she acts on that principle as her law. How 
can she avoid condemning as unlawful, and that not in 
England, but everywhere, all other orders non-episco- 
pal ? " 1 This is both frank and logical. While the law 
of the Episcopal Church, as interpreted by her uniform 
practice, continues what it is ; while no man who has 
not been episcopally ordained is admitted to her minis- 
try, nor even allowed occasionally to minister in her 
pulpits and in her celebration of the sacraments, — it is 
1 Haddan's Apostolic Succession, p. 175. 



156 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

neither consistent nor candid to contend that the Epis- 
copal Church does not condemn the ordination of other 
denominations as null and void. Nor is the force of 
this inference at all impaired by insisting, as some do, 
upon the peculiar phraseology of the law, which says, "No 
man shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful bishop, 
priest, or deacon in this Church . . . except he has had 
episcopal consecration or ordination." Was the expres- 
sion, " this Church " intended to separate, and does it in 
fact separate, the Episcopal Church in the matter of its 
orders from the corporate life and the Divine mission 
of the visible Church of Christ ? Was it intended to 
affirm that episcopal ordination confers upon those who 
receive it authority to preach the Word and administer 
the sacraments only within the hounds of the Episcopal 
denomination ? No Churchman, High or Low, would 
admit this. They all hold, as we do, that ordination 
makes a man a minister of the visible Church of Christ, 
and gives him a commission as broad as that of the 
Apostles to preach the Gospel and administer the sacra- 
ments to every creature. If, therefore, non-episcopal 
ordination does not confer the . right to perform minis- 
terial functions within the bounds of " this Church," it 
does not confer the right to perform such functions any- 
where. It is but a weak evasion to tell us that they 
recognize our ordination as valid in the Presbyterian 
denomination ; for it is not a human right conferred 
and limited by a voluntary association of men that we 
are discussing, but a Divine right conferred by the 
Supreme Head of the Church. The question before us 
is whether they recognize our ordination as valid in the 
visible Church of Christ. Eor their own sake we answer 
this question in the negative. We are not willing to 
believe that they account us true ministers of Christ 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 157 

and stewards of the mysteries of God, and yet presume, 
in defiance of Christ's commission to us, to say, " You 
may preach and administer the sacraments anywhere 
else, but we cannot allow you to perform any function 
of the ministry in ' this Church.' " This would be the 
very essence of sectarianism and schism. We dare not 
accuse them of such disloyalty to the doctrine of the 
Church, and to Christ, her living Head. 

But it is asked, as though the question carried with 
it a complete vindication of their position, so far, at 
least, as we have any right to complain of it, " Does not 
the Presbyterian Church exclude from her pulpits and 
the administration of the sacraments some who claim 
to be ministers of Christ ? " Yes, certainly, we exclude 
some who claim to be ministers of Christ ; but we ex- 
clude none whose claims we recognize as valid. We dare 
not put a sectarian fence around our pulpit or our com- 
munion-table. They belong, not to us, but to Christ. 
In the matter of ordination we recognize the obvious 
distinction between validity and regularity. We think 
the substance of this or of any Divine ordinance may 
remain, even when, through want of explicit instruction 
from God, or of clear apprehension on the part of men, 
the form of it has been changed. We recognize ordi- 
nation by a diocesan bishop as valid, though we regard 
it as irregular; and there is not a presbytery in the 
world who would for a moment entertain the proposal 
to re-ordain an Episcopal minister. 

"Why, then," say some of our Episcopal brethren, 
" since you acknowledge the validity of our ordination, 
will you not heal the schism between us by taking 
orders at the hands of our bishops ? " This proposition 
has been made, and we believe that it is made, not in 
any spirit of proselytism, but in good faith, and with 



158 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

an earnest desire for the unity of the visible Church. 
But there are three obstacles in the way of its accep- 
tance : (1) We cannot consent to be ordained twice ; 
(2) we cannot admit the assumption on which the ne- 
cessity for episcopal ordination is based ; (3) even if we 
could plead guilty ourselves, we cannot admit that mul- 
titudes of Christ's ministers, who, without such ordina- 
tion, have made full proof of their ministry and gone 
to their reward, were usurpers in the sacred office. 
So long as this remains the only condition of mutual 
recognition, the case seems hopeless. And while this 
obstacle stands, alliances and conventions outside of the 
Church, kind words and acts of courtesy carefully sepa- 
rated from ministerial functions, and from the commu- 
nion of the body of Christ, however sweet and pleasant 
in themselves, are utterly inadequate to the case ; and 
when we consider the great interests at issue, they seem 
like " vanity and a striving after wind " (Eccles. i. 14, 
Eevised Version). 

If the Episcopal Church could come back to the 
spirit and practice of her earlier, and in this respect 
her better, days, and acknowledge non-episcopal ordi- 
nation as valid, though in her judgment irregular, this 
would put us upon an equal footing ; it would tend to 
remove prejudice, and silence evil speaking on all sides ; 
it would perhaps put an end to that supercilious and 
irritating assumption which makes " this Church " sy- 
nonymous with " the Church ; " and so it would create an 
atmosphere of mutual confidence and respect in which 
the unity of the Church would grow like the lily, and 
cast forth roots as Lebanon. Zealous Episcopalians will 
probably resent the bare suggestion of such a conces- 
sion on their part. Some, like Dr. Blunt, will look 
upon it as a renewed attempt of foreign Protestantism 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 159 

to bring them down " to the same abject level." But 
vehement protests, though they express the sincere con- 
viction and desire of individuals, are not always true 
prophecies of what great bodies of people will do. Ex- 
treme opinions are never the most stable. Stranger 
changes than the one suggested have swept over even 
the Episcopal Church. When Bancroft, or Hall, or 
Laud first preached the doctrine of exclusive jure divino 
episcopacy, there was little prospect of its being domi- 
nant and established by law in the Church of England. 
And yet in half a century its triumph was complete, 
and that, too, through what seemed for a time to be its 
utter overthrow. And so, the recent attempt to recon- 
cile the Church of England with Eome and the Greek 
Church having failed, the desire for visible, catholic 
unity, coupled with the Protestant instincts of the 
English people, may make such utterances as those of 
Bishop Wordsworth, 1 in his charge to the clergy of his 
diocese, and of Bishop Lightfoot, in his essay on the 
Christian Ministry, the seeds of another great move- 
ment leading to better and more permanent results. We 

1 In dealing with this question we must not allow ourselves to be 
carried away by any merely mechanical or imperfect view of what is 
called apostolic succession, or, in other words, of the continuity of 
the ministry and of the Church itself. That continuity consists in 
doctrine at least as much as in order ; and it may be claimed upon 
the former ground by all bodies that accept the articles of the Chris- 
tian creed. More than this, it may be reasonably doubted whether 
orthodox non-Episcopalian bodies have not done more to maintain 
the true apostolic succession as explained and insisted on by Irenseus 
and Tertullian than the Church of Rome has done, which has gone 
far, by alterations and additions, to corrupt the simplicity, not only of 
the apostolic doctrine, but of the apostolic ministry; whereas the 
only true and perfect continuity consists, as I have said, in having 
retained or recovered both. — Bishop Wordsworth : Address to 
Clergy, 1885. 



160 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

« 

know that the doctrine of exclusive episcopal ordina- 
tion was enacted into a law for political quite as much 
as for ecclesiastical purposes. The dominant opinion in 
the days of the Restoration was that prelacy and king- 
ship must stand or fall together. " No bishop, no king," 
was always the battle-cry and the pass-word of the 
Stuarts and their adherents in Church and State. But 
the history of this country has demonstrated, what all 
Protestant denominations admit, that both Church and 
State can stand alone, and each fulfil its own functions 
better for the separation. The recognition of this truth, 
together with their sincere desire for unity, may yet 
modify the attitude of the Episcopal body towards other 
denominations, by making them realize that they are 
dissenters from us as much as we are dissenters from 
them. The political complications of past centuries, 
which identified questions of Church government and 
modes of worship with the conflicts between civil liberty 
and tyranny, have passed away, and their traditional 
animosities are dying out for lack of fuel. There is no 
reason for perpetuating the old disputes between Cava- 
lier and Roundhead, between the fierce and bloody in- 
tolerance of Laud and the Stuarts on the one hand, and 
the no less fierce resistance of the Solemn League and 
Covenant on the other. Thanks to Puritan and Cove- 
nanter, that contest has ended in the triumph of liberty 
for us all. The banners of that great war are rotting 
away in ecclesiastical museums, and it is time for its 
battle-cries to die out in the Church. 

These observations are made in no spirit of unfriendli- 
ness towards the Episcopal Church in England and in 
this country. We have no sympathy with the ignorant 
and indiscriminate denunciation of her government and 
forms of worship as inconsistent with vital piety, or as 



ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY. 161 

having a kinship with the errors of Eomanism. We 
recognize her historically and in the present as one of 
the grand bulwarks of genuine Protestantism. We have 
a sincere admiration for the decency and order of her 
worship, and a profound gratitude, as every Christian 
scholar must have, for the rich biblical literature she 
has given and is still giving to the world. We observe 
with unmixed pleasure her increasing zeal for missions 
and for preaching the Gospel to the poor at home, and 
the demonstration she is giving that her liturgical forms 
and her maintenance of church authority are not incon- 
sistent with evangelistic fervor and success. 

And because we thus regard her we desire to see her 
laying aside every weight, taking up every stumbling- 
block, and casting off every prejudice which narrows her 
sympathies and hinders her progress towards the triumph 
of the Gospel and the unity of the body of Christ. 
Nor do we assume that she alone needs to adjust her- 
self to the good time coming, that the stumbling-blocks 
are all in her way, or that the shells of traditional preju- 
dice, cling only to her limbs. The Presbyterian Church 
is equally liable to changes, and by no means exempt 
from the need of them. Are they not now passing over 
and through us ? Is not the atmosphere of our Church 
different from what it was a generation ago ? While 
there is no less zeal for essential truth, we know and 
feel that there is far more toleration for non-essential 
differences in opinions and in forms of worship. We do 
not sympathize with those who are alarmed and troubled 
by these things, for we regard them, not as the changing 
colors of the autumn leaves that prophesy decay, but 
rather as the tender hues and budding fertility of the 
spring, which predict and produce the coming harvest. 

11 



LECTUEE VI. 

THE LORD'S SUPPER. 

nr^HEEE is in our day a wide-spread defection from 
■*■ the doctrine of the sacraments as taught in all the 
creeds of the Reformation. This departure is not only 
nor chiefly towards Rome. The drift is much stronger 
in the direction of a vague formalism, which makes the 
holy ordinances instituted by Christ mere outward signs, 
having no Divinely appointed connection with an inward 
and spiritual grace. " Low Churchmen " in all denomina- 
tions vie with each other in making the sacraments 
simply memorials of Christ and badges of a Christian 
profession. They disjoin the sacraments from prayer 
and the Word of God, and deny that these holy ordi- 
nances are " effectual means of salvation." While they 
insist upon Gospel grace and the grace of prayer, " sacra- 
mental grace " is with them a mark of heresy and a 
term of reproach. Baptism is simply an outward form 
of consecration. The Lord's Supper is only a remem- 
brancer, fitted to stir the feelings of the communicant, but 
conferring no Divine benefit which cannot be obtained 
by those who wilfully neglect its use. 1 Doubtless these 

1 " We believe there is scarcely any subject set forth in the con- 
fessions of the Reformed churches that is less attended to and less 
understood than this of the sacraments, and that many even of those 
who have subscribed these confessions rest satisfied with some con- 
fused notions on baptism and the Lord's Supper, while they have 
scarcely even a fragment of an idea of a sacramental principle or of 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 163 

views are a reaction and a protest against errors lying 
in the opposite extreme ; but they are not more tolera- 
ble on that account. The human soul cannot live on 
negations. There is great need of a sacramental re- 
vival among all denominations, and especially among 
Presbyterians. We ought to study our own Standards 
on this subject, and to compare them, in the light of 
Scripture, with the creeds of other denominations. Such 
investigation cannot fail to quicken our faith, enlarge 
our views, and remove many of the prejudices which 
have grown out of sectarian controversies. 

All Christian teaching upon the Lord's Supper may 
be classified under four theories, — the Roman Catholic, 
the Lutheran, the Zwinglian, and the Calvinistic. These 
titles are not sharply definitive. The four theories have 
points of contact where they shade into each other. 
They have a common centre in Christ. They all agree 
that the sacrament is His appointment ; that its design 
is expressed in His own words of institution ; that its 
subject is Christ and His atoning sacrifice ; that its con- 
tinued observance is obligatory upon all Christians ; 
that He is present whenever it is rightfully celebrated. 
And with the exception perhaps of the Zwinglian, they 
all agree that the Lord's Supper is an effectual means 
of grace and salvation. But they differ very widely as 
to the interpretation of Christ's words of institution, the 

any general doctrine or theory on the subject " (Cunningham's Re- 
formers and Theology of the Reformation, p. 239). 

The reason why believers receive so little by their attendance on 
the Lord's Supper is that they expect so little. " They expect to 
have their affections somewhat stirred, and their faith somewhat 
strengthened; but they perhaps rarely expect to receive Christ, 
and to be filled with all the fulness of God. Yet Christ in offering 
Himself to us in this ordinance offers us all of God we are capable 
of receiving" (Hodge's Theology, iii. 624). 



164 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

mode of His presence in the sacrament, the ground of its 
obligation or necessity, and the process and extent of its 
efficacy. The terms " Zwinglian " and " Calvinistic " are 
specially indefinite as descriptive of the theories to which 
they are applied. 1 In regard to the Lord's Supper, as 
well as other subjects, many things bear the venerable 
names of Zwingle and Calvin which they never taught. 
Still, they stand as the representatives of two sacra- 
mental theories which differ from each other quite as 
much as they both differ from the teaching of Luther 
and from the Eomish doctrine. 

The controversy on this whole subject did not begin 
with the Keformation. 2 The Eomish doctrine, which 
was first authoritatively formulated by the Council of 
Trent in 1551, cannot be defended upon the ground of 
catholicity. Even before the Keformation it was never 
universally accepted. It is not taught in any of the an- 
cient creeds. It was not affirmed by any ecumenical coun- 
cil for fifteen centuries after the birth of Christ. Into the 
question as to how far the Eomish doctrine is sustained 
by the teaching of the Fathers of the first four or five 

1 Dr. Charles Hodge holds that " there were three distinct types 
of doctrine among the Reformed, — the Zwinglian, the Calvinistic, 
and an intermediate form, which ultimately became symbolical, being 
adopted in the authoritative Standards of the Church " (Theology, 
iii. 626). In this we venture to observe that Dr. Hodge differs 
from most orthodox writers upon the subject. But the question is 
one of classification and of names, and of no vital importance. We 
prefer to adhere to the common nomenclature. The doctrine of the 
Reformed confessions is, as most authorities agree, substantially that 
of Calvin, and not a compromise between his views and those of 
Zwingle. 

2 Gieseler sums up the history of the mediaeval controversy on 
this subject as follows : " The ecclesiastical mode of speaking, that 
bread and wine in the Lord's Supper became by consecration the 
body and blood of Christ, may have been frequently understood of 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 165 

centuries, we need not enter. It is not easy to form a 
consensus of the Fathers upon this or any other subject. 
They contradict each other in the interpretation of Scrip- 
ture quite as much as modern commentators and theo- 
logians ; and if their rhetorical language is to be taken 
literally, they constantly contradict themselves in regard 
to the Lord's Supper. And yet there are points of 
agreement, both negative and positive, in their testi- 
mony, which are fatal to the modern claims of the 
Church of Eome as to the catholicity of her doctrine. 
Dr. Schaff affirms * that there is no trace in all the 
ancient liturgies of the adoration of the consecrated 
elements, which follows transubstantiation as a logical 
necessity, and that in the whole patristic literature there 
are only four passages from which this doctrine can be 
inferred. 

Harold Browne, Bishop of Ely, in his admirable lec- 
tures on the Thirty-nine Articles, after showing conclu- 
sively that the whole Primitive Church believed in the 
real presence of Christ in the Supper, says : " If there 
were no alternative but that the Fathers must have held 
either a carnal presence or none at all, then we must 

a transformation of substance by the uneducated; but among the 
theologians of the West this misconception could not so readily find 
acceptance, in consequence of the clear explanations given by Au- 
gustine. When, therefore, Paschasius Radbert (in the beginning of 
the ninth century) expressly taught such a transformation, he met 
with considerable opposition. Still, the mystical and apparently 
pious doctrine, which was easier of apprehension and seemed to 
correspond better to the sacred words, obtained its advocates too ; 
and it was easy to see that it only needed times of darkness such as 
soon followed to become general " (Gieseler's Ecclesiastical History, 
ii. 79). See also Freeman's Principles of Divine Service, ii. 6; 
SchafF's History of Christian Church, iv. 460 ; Schaff' s Creeds of 
Christendom, ii. 130; Neander's Church History, iv. 335. 
1 History of Christian Church, iii. 501. 



166 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

perforce believe that they were transubstantiationists." 
But he demonstrates another alternative, which has been 
acknowledged as possible even by eminent Eomanist 
divines. By a long catena of patristic authorities he 
proves that the Fathers held to the spiritual presence of 
Christ and to the spiritual feeding of the soul upon His 
body and blood, and that " their writings contain abun- 
dant evidence that the doctrine of transubstantiation 
had not risen in their day." He concludes his argu- 
ment with the following passage from Bishop Gardiner 
in his controversy with Cranmer : " The Catholic teach- 
ing is that the manner of Christ's presence in the sacra- 
ment is spiritual and supernatural, not corporal nor 
carnal, not sensible nor perceptible, but only spiritual, 
the how and manner whereof God know T eth." 1 The 
doctrine of the Church of Rome is thus defined in the 
Decrees of the Council of Trent : " By the consecration 
of the bread and wine a conversion is made of the whole 
substance of the bread into the substance of the body of 
our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into His 
blood, which conversion is by the Holy Catholic Church 
suitably and properly called transubstantiation." The 
best summary of the reasons for rejecting this doctrine 2 
is found in the Thirty-nine Articles : " Transubstantia- 
tion cannot be proved by Holy Writ, but is repugnant to 
the plain meaning of Scripture, overthroweth the nature 
of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many super- 
stitions." 3 These four arguments are comprehensive 
and conclusive. Transubstantiation cannot be proved 
from Holy Writ, because the one passage adduced to sup- 
port it admits of an easier interpretation, which brings 

1 Browne on the Thirty-nine Articles, p. 678. 

2 See Appendix, Lecture VI. (A). 
8 Article 28. 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 167 

this one passage into harmony with the admitted inter- 
pretation of many similar texts ; 2 it is repugnant to the 
plain meaning of Scripture, because an inspired Apostle, 
when repeating the words of the institution as he re- 
ceived them from the Lord, expressly declares that the 
sacred emblems, after consecration and at the very time 
when they are eaten and drunk by the communicant, 
are still bread and wine ; 2 it overthrows the nature of a 
sacrament, even according to the Komish definition, by 
identifying the sign with the thing signified, thus de- 
stroying the sacramental relation between them ; 3 it is 

1 Circumcision is the Lord's covenant, the Lamb is the Lord's 
passover, the ark of the covenant is the face of God, that rock was 
Christ, I am the true vine, I am the door of the sheep. All Chris- 
tians understand these statements as figurative. Roman Catholics 
are obliged to give a figurative meaning to the words, " This cup is 
the New Testament in My blood." There is no reason in the gram- 
matical structure nor in the circumstances under which it was ut- 
tered to compel us to understand the words " this is My body " in 
its most literal sense. 

2 Cardinal Wiseman, in his fifth Lecture on the Eucharist, con- 
tends that if our Lord had meant to teach that the bread represents 
His body, He would have said, " This bread is My body ; " "but He 
intentionally avoided calling it bread, and simply said 'this,' because 
when He spake, what He held in His hand was not bread, but His 
own body." The cardinal does not explain how, according to his 
views, the bread was transubstantiated before the words of consecra- 
tion were fully uttered, neither does he account for the fact that 
Paul, when he is delivering what he had received of the Lord, ex- 
pressly calls the elements after they are consecrated, and at the very 
time when they are received by the communicant, " this bread," and 
" this cup." "As oft as ye eat this bread and drink this cup," etc. ; 
" Whoso eateth this bread and drinketh this cup," etc. (1 Cor. xi. 
26, 27). 

3 The most holy Eucharist hath this, in common with the rest 
of the sacraments, that it is the symbol of a sacred thing, a visible 
form of an invisible grace. — Decrees of Council of Trent, Session 
13, chap. 3. 



168 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

the occasion of many superstitions, because it leads by 
logical necessity to the worship of the consecrated ele- 
ments 1 and to the pretended repetition of Christ's offer- 
ing 2 of Himself on the cross, and is therefore " most 
abominably injurious " to the one everlasting sacrifice 
for sins by which He has forever perfected them that 
are sanctified (Heb. x. 12-14). 

There was a remarkable agreement among all the 
Eeformers as to the doctrines of grace. The theology 
of Melanchthon and of Calvin, of Knox and of Cranmer, 

1 Wherefore there is no room left for doubt that all the faithful 
in Christ may, according to the custom ever received in the Catholic 
Church, render in veneration the worship in latria, which is due to 
the true God, to this most holy sacrament. — Decrees of Council of 
Trent, Session 13, chap. 5. 

2 " In the Divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass the 
same Christ is contained and immolated, in an unbloody manner, who 
once offered Himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross. 
For the Victim is one and the same, the same now offering by the 
ministry of priests who then offered Himself on the cross, the manner 
of offering alone being different. ' If any one saith that the sacrifice 
of the Mass is only a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, but not a 
propitiatory sacrifice, and that it ought not to be offered for the living 
and for the dead, for sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessities, 
let him be accursed ' " (Ibid., Session 22, chapters 2, 3). There is no 
valid objection to calling the Lord's Supper the " Eucharistic Sacri- 
fice," — i. e., the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Whether in its literal or its 
historic sense, the phrase does not signify a repetition, but only " the 
commemoration of Christ's one offering up of Himself upon the cross 
once for all, and a spiritual oblation of all possible praise unto God 
for the same" (Westminster Confession, xxxix. 2). Very different, 
however, is the teaching of some of the Anglican High Churchmen. 
Take the latest exposition of their views : " The holy Eucharist is a 
perpetuation of our Lord's passion. . . . The holy words of our Lord 
(in the institution of the Supper) then had begun that work which 
was to be accomplished by the unholy hands of others. It was com- 
menced in the upper chamber, but consummated on the cross. And 
that which our Lord began to do by His own words when He was 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 169 

was substantially the same. 1 How unutterable is the 
pity that this harmony in fundamentals could not have 
embraced all questions of Church government and wor- 
ship ! The bitter strife in regard to the sacraments, of 
which Luther and Zwingle were the recognized leaders, 
did more than all other causes to prevent the complete 
triumph of the Eeformation. It is not for us to say 
which of them was most self-willed, or whether either 
is to be blamed for the evil results of the controversy. 
While neither can be properly called a theologian, they 
were both Christian heroes, having the courage of their 
convictions. But there is a real and profound differ- 
ence in the views they adopted. For this reason all 
attempts to compromise their doctrines failed. The 
Eeformed theologians labored hard to formulate a state- 
ment which both parties could adopt without a sacri- 
fice of conscience. Calvin and Melanchthon exerted their 
utmost strength as peacemakers. Calvin especially, in 
his earnest desire to conciliate, went to the utmost verge 
of concession ; so that while he is the most consistent 
of all the Eeformed theologians, it is easy to quote frag- 
ments from his writings which make him appear at one 
time like a Lutheran, and at another like a Zwinglian. 
The Helvetic Confessions, the Formula of Concord, and 
the Consensus Tigurinus, are among the fruits of this 
effort to compromise. But they were simply flags of 
truce, not standards of permanent peace. They are not 

upon the earth, He still continues to do through the ministry of His 
servants now that He has ascended into heaven" (Wilberforce's 
Doctrines of the Holy Eucharist, p. 44) . We can see no difference 
between this and the Decree of the Council of Trent, except that it 
is more vaguely and feebly expressed. 

1 The Thirty-nine Articles are just as Calvinistic as the West- 
minster Confession. There is no doctrinal difference in the Stand- 
ards of the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches. 



170 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

to be compared in the explicitness of their teaching, nor 
in their living authority, with such symbols as the first 
Scotch Confession, the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church 
of England, and the Westminster Confession and Cate- 
chism, whose formative purpose was the positive state- 
ment of Scripture truth rather than the reconciliation of 
conflicting doctrines. Having failed in the attempt to 
compromise on the subject of the sacraments, the Luth- 
erans and the Eeformed separated permanently on this 
issue into two hostile camps, each retaining, however, 
in its own bosom some of the elements which it for- 
mally repudiated. In Germany the outward agreement 
was effected on political grounds by the pressure of the 
civil government, rather than by ecclesiastical authority 
and the force of reasoning. The Eeformed Churches 
embraced and absorbed, but did not subdue, the Zwing- 
lian element ; and though there can be no question that 
the doctrine of the sacraments, taught in all the Ee- 
formed Confessions, whose influence has survived, is dis- 
tinctively Calvinistic, the churches which adopt these 
Confessions have never been free from the prevalence of 
Zwinglian views. The Low and Broad Church parties 
in the Church of England are deeply imbued with them, 
and they have many advocates in the Presbyterian 
Church of Great Britain and America. 

There is a popular impression that the Lutheran 
differs but little from the Eomish doctrine of the sacra- 
ments. This impression is due either to ignorance or 
to prejudice. The Lutheran doctrine is essentially and 
explicitly Protestant in its rejection of transubstantia- 
tion and the errors which logically flow from it. It 
repudiates and condemns the worship of the conse- 
crated elements, and the idea of the repetition in any 
sense of Christ's one everlasting sacrifice for sin. The 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 171 

term " consubstantiation," commonly applied to it, is a 
nickname, which is not found in any of the Lutheran 
symbols ; and the ideas it conveys to ordinary readers 
are repudiated by Lutherans as strenuously as by our- 
selves. No intelligent Lutheran believes that the body 
and blood of Christ are literally mixed up, as Hooker 
says, with the bread and wine, or that they are locally 
confined to the elements in the sacrament, or that they 
are received and consumed with the mouth in the same 
way as the bread and wine. The Formula of Con- 
cord and many eminent Lutheran divines indignantly 
reject the notion of a physical eating with the teeth of 
Christ's body as " a malignant and blasphemous slander 
of the sacramentarians." 1 

The Lutheran doctrine not only repudiates transub- 
stantiation, the worship of the consecrated elements, 
the repetition of Christ's sacrifice, and the carnal eating 
of His body and blood by the mouth of the communi- 
cant, — all of which gross conceptions are essential to 
the Eomish doctrine, — but it rejects also the Eomish 
notion that the sacrament of itself contains the grace 
which it signifies, and that its saving effects are inde- 
pendent of the faith of the recipient. At this point 
the Lutheran doctrine is a strong protest against the 
errors of the Church of Eome. How could it be other- 
wise, since it is Luther's doctrine ? The saving efficacy 
and the absolute necessity of a personal faith in Christ 
was with him the very centre and stronghold of Chris- 
tianity. In the beginning of his conflict with Eome, 
he declared " whatever be the case with the sacrament, 
faith must maintain its rights and honors." From this 
point he never swerved. " Non sacramentum, sed fides 
sacramenti, justificat," was one of his axioms. He also 

1 Schaff's Creeds, i. 317. 



172 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

insisted that faith may receive, apart from the sacra- 
ment, the same thing as in the sacrament. " He never 
doubted, indeed, that the sacrament conveys a blessing; 
but he stands upon this, — that the Almighty God Him- 
self can work nothing good in a man unless he be- 
lieves." 1 Here, thea, in its application to the vital 
question of a sinner's justification before God, Luther- 
anism is forever divorced from Eoinanism. This alone 
is a sufficient answer to the flippant assertion that con- 
substantiation is the same thing as transubstantiation 
under another name. 

The statements of the Augsburg Confession, 2 both as 
to the sacraments in general and the Lord's Supper in 
particular, are capable of an interpretation entirely con- 
sistent with the teaching of the Eeformed Confessions. 3 

It is in the explanations of the Augsburg Confession, 
in subsequent and apologetic symbols, especially in the 
Formula of Concord and the Saxon Visitation Articles, 
that the differences between the Lutheran and Eeformed 
doctrine distinctly appear. These differences all centre 
in the question, What do unbelievers receive in the 
Lord's Supper ? The Lutheran doctrine maintains that 
they receive the same thing with believers, though it 
produces opposite effects in the two cases : to the one it 
is an effectual means of salvation ; while to the other 

1 Dorner's Hist, of Protestant Theology, i. 150. 

2 Of the Lord's Supper they teach that the true body and blood 
of Christ are truly present under the form of bread and wine, and 
are communicated to those that eat in the Lord's Supper and re- 
ceived by them; and they disapprove those that teach otherwise. 
Wherefore also the opposite doctrine is rejected. — Schaff : Creeds, 
iii. 13. 

8 The Lutheran definition of the sacraments agrees in all essen- 
tial points with that of the Eeformed Churches. — Hodge : The- 
ology, iii. 488. 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 173 

it is only a means of condemnation and spiritual death. 
According to the Eeformed doctrine, unbelievers re- 
ceive nothing but the outward and visible elements, 
while believers by faith receive and feed upon the body 
and blood of Christ. 1 

We cannot undertake accurately to define what 
Zwingle taught in regard to the sacraments, nor to 
harmonize the conflicting testimony of the learned in 
regard to it. 2 He does not seem to have been con- 
sistent with himself. His ardent mind was better 
qualified to pull down error than to build up the truth. 
Admitting all that has been said in explanation and 
defence of his teaching, it is evident that his doc- 
trine fell far below the standard of the Eeformed con- 
fessions. There is historic justice in applying the name 
" Zwinglian " to such statements in regard to the Lord's 
Supper as the following : — 

1. That the bread and the wine of the Holy Com- 
munion are nothing but naked and bare signs, and that 
the ordinance itself is simply a commemoration of 
Christ's death, a badge of our Christian profession, and 
a pledge of mutual love among believers. 

2. That the Lord's Supper is only a sign and seal of 
pre-existing grace in the communicant, and not a means 
or instrument by which more grace is bestowed upon 
those who worthily partake of it. 

3. That Christ is present and operative for our salva- 
tion in the sacrament only in His Divine nature and in 
the apprehension of the believing communicant. 

4. That the benefits received by the believer at the 
Lord's table are nothing more than the sacrificial virtue 
of the Saviour's death on the cross. 

1 See Appendix, Lecture VI. (B). 

2 Ibid. (C). 



174 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

5. That the sacramental feeding of the believing soul 
on Christ, the eating of His flesh and the drinking of 
His blood in the Holy Supper, is identical with any and 
every exercise of faith in Him, and therefore can be 
done as well elsewhere as at the Lord's table. 

6. That the necessity for the observance of the Lord's 
Supper is simply a necessity of precept, and not a neces- 
sity of means. In other words, that we are obliged to 
keep the feast of the Holy Communion only because 
Christ has commanded it, and not because we are to 
expect any special benefit from its observance. 

Each of these statements will be fully discussed as 
we proceed. Meantime we cannot forbear to observe 
that we reject them not only because of their incon- 
sistency with our doctrinal standards and with the 
teaching of Scripture, but because of the spirit which 
pervades them and the underlying assumptions on 
which they are based. Zwinglianism is essentially 
rationalistic in the evil sense of the word. Its chief 
effort is to explain away or reduce to a minimum the 
mystery of the Lord's Supper. It assumes that the 
theory which is most level to our comprehension, which 
brings the Holy Supper nearest to a common meal where 
Christians have sweet fellowship together, and makes it 
agree most with ordinary human experience, is for that 
reason nearest to the truth. We have heard Presby- 
terian ministers, in administering it, eulogizing the ab- 
solute simplicity, not only of its symbols, but of its whole 
design and efficacy, comparing it to the monument which 
recalls the memory of some great man, as though that 
explained its whole meaning and effect ; and dwelling 
with minute particularity upon Christ's physical suffer- 
ings, as though our highest purpose in keeping the feast 
was to look on a pathetic picture and be moved by it. 



THE LOKD'S STJPPEK 175 

We orow weary in our reading on the subject of the re- 
iterated assertion that this or that view is incompre- 
hensible, unreasonable, or contrary to common-sense ; 
and the more so, because the same writers who use such 
arguments in regard to the Lord's Supper repudiate and 
denounce them when they are urged by others against 
the doctrine of the Trinity, the sovereignty of God, the 
incarnation, the atonement, the resurrection and exalta- 
tion of Christ, the vital union of believers with His 
glorified Person, and the wonder-working power of His 
Holy Spirit, — all of which revealed mysteries pervade 
and are embodied in the transcendent mystery of the 
Holy Communion. 

Perhaps the ripest and the bitterest fruit of this ration- 
alizing about the Lord's Supper may be found in Dean 
Stanley's " Christian Institutions." Adopting the idea 
of Eenan, he makes the " Last Supper a continuation of 
those earlier feasts in which Christ had blessed and 
broken the bread and distributed the fishes on the hills 
of Galilee." 1 He can see no higher character in the 
communion of the first and second centuries than in the 
festive dinner of "a Greek club, where each brought, 
as to a common meal, his own contribution in a basket, 
and each helped himself from a common table." 2 He 
identifies the Lord's Supper with the love-feasts of the 
Early Church. He admits, indeed, that it was intended 
by its Founder to be " a glorification of the power of 
memory ; " but in his account of what is thus to be re- 
membered, he is careful to avoid any reference to Christ's 
death as the sacrifice for sin, and insists only upon His 
example and teaching as inculcating human charity. 
In proportion as the observance of this ordinance en- 
ables us " to move in unison " with the parables of the 

1 Christian Institutions, p. 41. 2 Ibid., p. 46. 



176 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, and the Good Shep- 
herd ; with the Beatitudes on the Galilean mountains, 
the resignation in Gethsemane, and the courage on Cal- 
vary, — he affirms that " it is a true partaking of what the 
Gospels intended by the body of Christ." 1 He denies 
that the Lord's Supper is necessary for these ends, and 
insists that all who move in unison with these moral 
precepts and examples, " whether they be Christian in 
name or not, whether they have or have not partaken 
of the sacrament, have thus received Christ, because 
they have received that which was the essence of Christ, 
— His spirit of mercy and toleration." 2 

There is nothing new in these sentiments. But the 
strange thing is that a clergyman of high position in 
the Church of England, one accustomed to the public 
use of her solemn liturgies, should advocate such opin- 
ions ; that he should claim for them the authority of 
" the clear-headed and intrepid Zwingle," 3 and attempt 
to reconcile them with the Articles and Formularies of 
the Episcopal Church, by the vague assertion that 
" since the days of Elizabeth a strong Zwinglian atmos- 
phere has pervaded the original theology of the Church 
of England, and been its prevailing hue." 4 

The Eeformed, as distinguished from the Lutheran 
and the Zwinglian, doctrine of the Lord's Supper is 
called " Calvinistic," not because Calvin invented it, but 
because at the time of the Beformation he was its ablest 
and most influential expounder. He appealed from the 
teaching of Borne on the one hand, and from the doc- 
trine of Zwingle on the other, not only to the Scrip- 
tures, but to the commentaries of the Fathers. In the 
chapter of the " Institutes " which treats of the Com- 

1 Christian Institutions, p. 121. 2 Ibid., p. 42. 

8 Ibid, p. 106. 4 Ibid., p. 109. 



THE LORD'S SUPPER, 177 

inunion — one of the noblest pieces of writing in the 
records of the Eeformation — he proves by quotations, 
especially from Augustine, that the Eeformed doctrine 
is catholic and apostolic. He stands for the historic 
faith of the Church against both the inventions of 
Kome and the vagaries of those who broke away to an 
opposite extreme. There is no ground for doubting that 
the views he defended passed substantially into all the 
authoritative Confessions of the Eeformation, and must 
be regarded as the orthodox doctrine of the Eeformed. 1 
That it is the doctrine of the Thirty-nine Articles and 
of the Westminster Confession, and that the Standards 
of the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches are in per- 
fect accord upon this subject, no candid student will 
deny. 2 If there is any difference, it is in the fact that 
the latter teaches what are called " sacramentarian " 3 
views rather more explicitly and in stronger terms than 
the former. 

1 Schaff's Creeds of Christendom, i. 376. 

2 The teaching of the Confession on the Lord's Supper is that 
of Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Hooker, Usher, and many others. . . . 
This teaching is as far removed from the " bare remembrance " the- 
ory, attributed to the early Swiss Reformers, as from the consubstan- 
tiation of Luther and the local or supra-local presence contended for 
by the Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholics. — Mitchell : Lectures 
on the Westminster Assembly. 

The doctrine of the real spiritual presence is the doctrine of the 
English Church, and was the doctrine of Calvin and of many foreign 
Reformers. — Browne on Thirty-nine Articles, p. 678. 

The peculiar views of Luther on the real presence and the ubiquity 
of Christ's body found no congenial soil in England. Cranmer 
abandoned them, and adopted, together with Ridley, the Calvinistic 
doctrine of a virtual presence and communication of Christ's body. 
— Schaff : Creeds, i. 601. 

3 The name " Sacramentarian" was applied by Luther to Zwingle 
and his followers, to convey the idea that they explained away aud 

12 



178 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

The Eeformed doctrine of the Lord's Supper is inti- 
mately connected with the two great mysteries of the 
incarnation and the personal union of believers with 
Christ. The Holy Communion has its profound roots in 
the one mystery, and its precious fruits in the other. 
Christ did not say, " This do in remembrance of My 
death" To make it simply a memorial of His suffer- 
ings on the cross is to belittle the ordinance, and pre- 
sumptuously to restrict the meaning of the words of 
institution ■ " Do this in remembrance of Me," Christ 
Himself, in His Divine fulness, and not any part of His 
person or of His history, is the subject and the sub- 
stance of the sacrament. His death as the sacrifice for 
sin, though it is the central point, is but a small part of 
the history of His relation to His redeemed people ; 
and the importance and efficacy of this fact depend on 
what precedes and follows it. The cross of Jesus would 
be no more to us than the cross of the penitent thief, if 
He were not the Incarnate Son and Word of God, and 
if His cross were not inseparably connected with His 
resurrection and ascension to glory. 

The sacrament is founded upon and leads us to His 
one indivisible Person, which is the reservoir of all 
Divine fulness for our salvation. He is not, and can- 
not be, divided. His human nature never had, and 
never can have, any existence separate from His Deity. 
He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and was the Son 
of God from the moment of His conception. His human 
soul and His human body were separated for three days, 

reduced, to nothing the value of the sacraments; while Zwingle, 
throwing back the nickname, protested that it might be applied 
with more propriety to those who made great mysteries of the 
sacraments. — Cunningham : Reformers and Theology of the Refor- 
mation, p. 236. 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 179 

when the one descended to Hades, 1 and the other lay in 
the tomb ; but neither was parted for a moment from 
His Divine nature. Moreover, since the incarnation 
Christ's Divine nature does not exert any saving 
power, nor bestow any gracious gift upon men, except 
in and through His human nature. The Son of God 
was from the beginning the living Word of the Father, 
the life and the light of men ; and now since the Word 
became Flesh, it is the Son of Man who has power on 
earth to forgive sins, and is exalted a Prince and a Sa- 
viour to give repentance and remission. By its union 
with the Divine nature the humanity of Christ is in- 
finitely exalted. It was so even on earth ; the touch 
of His finger was life-giving, and there was virtue in the 
hem of His garment. The light of God which trans- 
figured Him on the mount came from within. It fol- 
lows from this that wherever Christ is, there is His 
human as well as His Divine nature. His human 
nature is virtually omnipresent, because it is inseparably 
and forever united to the Divine. 

The incarnation of the Son of God accomplishes its 
chief purpose in the personal union of the believer with 
Him. This union is a great mystery (Eph. vi. 32). 
But its mystery is no hindrance to our faith in its 
reality nor to our experimental knowledge of its blessed- 
ness. The Scriptures in which it is asserted are numer- 
ous, varied, and explicit. The sixth chapter of John, the 
farewell address of Christ, and the intercessory prayer are 
full of it. We are one with Him, even as He is one with 
the Father, as the branch is one with the vine, as the hus- 
band is one with the wife, as the members are one with 
the body. The union is not only legal, but vital. He 

1 Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer 
thine Holy One to see corruption. — Acts ii. 27, 31. 



180 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

dwells in us, and we in Him ; and " when He who is 
our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with 
Him in glory." It is trifling to set aside these Scrip- 
ture statements as mere figures of speech. The figures 
fall short of the profound reality which they illustrate. 
It is no less trifling to resolve the mystery of this per- 
sonal union with Christ into the indwelling of His 
Spirit in the souls of believers. It is accomplished by 
the indwelling of the Spirit, and therefore additional to 
it, and not identical with it. Our bodies as well as our 
souls are united to Christ, — our whole nature to His 
one Person. His saving work for us and in us will 
reach its consummation in the " redemption of our 
body." - 1 When the Christian dies, he " sleeps in Jesus." 
" The souls of believers at death, being made perfect in 
holiness, pass immediately into glory ; and their bodies, 
being still united to Christ, do rest in the grave till the 
resurrection." 2 

Now, both the everlasting unity of Christ's person 
and our personal union with Him are signified, exhibited, 
and brought home to our experience in the Lord's Sup- 
per. This is the chief end for which it was instituted. 
" It was designed to signify and effect our communion 
with Christ in His person, in His offices, and in their 
precious fruits." 3 

It is only by being made partakers of Christ Himself 
that w T e can partake of His benefits ; and therefore the 
res sacramenti, the thing signified, sealed, and applied 
in the Holy Supper, is not merely the sacrificial virtue 
of His death, nor the benefits He procures for us by His 
sacrifice and intercession, but the personal Christ, once 

1 Romans viii. 23. 

2 Shorter Catechism. 

8 A. A. Hodge's Commentary on the Confession, p. 484. 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 181 

crucified, now risen and glorified forever. He plainly 
asserts the necessity of this personal union with Him- 
self in words 1 which, if they are not intended to de- 
scribe the Lord's Supper, are certainly applicable to it ; 
for Paul makes the application (in 1 Cor. x. 16) when 
he declares that the bread we break and the cup of 
blessing we bless is the communion (the Kocvcovla, the 
actual participation) of the body and blood of Christ, — 
that is, of His Divine yet human person. " This I say, 
then, that in the mystery of the Supper, by the symbols 
of bread and wine, Christ, His body and blood, are truly 
exhibited to us ; first, that we might become one body 
with Him ; and secondly, that, being made partakers of * 
His substance, we might feel the results of this fact in 
the participation of all His blessings." 2 In his com- 
mentary on the eleventh chapter of First Corinthians, 
Calvin asserts the same great truth still more strongly. 3 

In the light of the incarnation and the personal union 
of believers with Christ, we may undertake to answer 
certain questions which go to the root of the whole 
doctrine as to the design and efficacy of the Lord's 
Supper. 

The first question relates to the real presence of 
Christ in the sacrament. In common language the 
idea of presence is usually restricted to local nearness 
and to discernment by the bodily senses. Yet even in 

1 Johnvi. 53-57. 

2 Calvin's Institutes, ii 564. 

3 Christ is obtained not only when we believe that He was made 
an offering for us, but when He dwells in us, when He is one with 
us, when we are members of His flesh (Eph. vi. 30), — when, in fine, 
we are incorporated with Him, so to speak, into one life and sub- 
stance. Tor He does not simply present to us the benefits of His 
death and resurrection, but the very body in which He suffered and 
rose again. — Calvin on 1 Cor. XL, 24-26. 



182 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

common language a much wider conception of its mean- 
ing is often indicated. We say of another that he is 
present with us when we know that he is sitting be- 
hind a screen at the farther end of the same room, or 
in another room of the same house. Two hearers are 
present in the same audience without recognizing each 
other. We speak of the presence of the sun when it 
shines on us. A blind man would use the same lan- 
guage. Presence, therefore, even in common language, 
does not depend upon local nearness nor upon sense 
perception. One person is present with another wher- 
ever he reveals himself and makes his influence felt by 
the other ; and even where such revelation is made and 
such influence exerted, though they are accepted and 
realized by some and not by others of the same com- 
pany. On a bright day at a funeral the sun is as really 
present with the corpse as with the living mourners. 

All Christians who believe in the Lord's Supper at 
all, believe also that Christ is present in it. The whole 
contention is about the mode of that presence. Many 
who admit its reality virtually deny it in their attempts 
to explain it, — those, for example, who make it a mere 
conception in the mind of believers. The Westminster 
Confession and Catechisms assert that " Christ's body 
and blood are present to the faith of the receiver no 
less truly than the elements themselves are to their out- 
ward senses." Their bodily senses do not produce, but 
only perceive, the presence of the elements. They are 
present to a blind man, though he does not see them. 
And so Faith perceives, but does not create nor secure, 
the presence of Christ's body and blood. It is as real 
to those who do not discern the Lord's body as to those 
who do. 1 While we fully agree, with Hooker, that they 

1 It seems impossible, with any show of reason, to assert that 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 183 

who hold that Christ's body and blood are " externally 
seated in the very consecrated elements themselves," 
are driven either to incorporate Him with the sacra- 
mental elements or to transubstantiate their substance 
into His, we cannot accept the inference that " the real 
presence of Christ's most blessed body and blood is not 
to be sought for in the sacrament, but in the worthy 
receiver of the sacrament." 1 Surely there is a broad 
and tenable ground between seating Christ externally in 
the elements and confining Him to the thoughts and 
experiences of the communicants. The two extremes 
meet, and are equally objectionable in this point, that 
they limit and localize the Saviour's presence. 2 

No less objectionable is the theory which identifies 
Christ's presence in the sacrament with the omnipresence 
of the Divine nature. This, like the preceding notion, 
belongs to Zwinglianism in its lowest form, and cannot 
be reconciled to the Scripture doctrine of the person of 
Christ. The Eomish Church is consistent with Scripture 
and with the teaching of all the Eeformed Confessions 
when she insists that Christ's presence in the sacrament 
includes His human as well as His Divine nature, His 
body and blood as well as His Deity. But when she 
insists that this personal and real presence involves the 

the discernment spoken of in 1 Cor. xi. 27-29 is the mere power of 
interpreting the signs as representatives of Christ's death, or that 
the guilt incurred is nothing more than the danger of abusing cer- 
tain outward symbols. These expressions evidently point to a spirit- 
ual and awful sin, not of misusing and profaning outward symbols, 
but of misusing and profaning Christ actually present in them. — 
Bannerman on the Church of Christ, ii. 138. 

1 Ecc. Polity, ii. 84. 

2 The body of Christ in this holy sacrament is a thing external 
to ourselves, and in nowise dependent upon our perception, knowl- 
edge, or belief. — Scudamore : Notitia Eucharistica, p. 858. 



184 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

transubstantiatio?i of the bread and wine into His Deity 
and humanity, we deny and protest against the assump- 
tion. We reject also the theory of a local presence in, 
with, or under the sacred symbols. Presence, as applied 
in Scripture and in our theology to the theanthropic 
person of Christ, has nothing to do with locality or 
limitation of any kind. 1 It refers to influence and mani- 
festation. His whole human nature, body and soul, 
being forever united to His Divine nature, is virtually 
omnipresent ; that is to say, its influence can be ex- 
erted and manifested anywhere, according to His Divine 
will. The ultimate source of such influence and mani- 
festation, of course, is in His Divine nature ; but they 
are exerted and put forth in and through His human 
nature. 

This use of the word " presence " is perfectly consist- 
ent, as already shown, with the popular use of language. 
It is consistent also with Christ's own promises : " Lo, 
I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 
" Where two or three are gathered together in My name, 
there am I in the midst of them." To resolve such 
promises into the presence of the Holy Spirit, is to be- 
little and utterly to confuse them. Christ does not 
make a difference in His promises without a correspond- 
ing difference in the things to which they refer. His 
promised presence, though invisible and intangible, and 

1 That participation in the body of Christ which I affirm does 
not require a local presence, nor the descent of Christ, nor infinite 
extension, nor anything of that nature. His communicating Him- 
self to us is effected through the secret virtue of the Holy Spirit, 
which cannot merely bring together, but join in one things which 
are separated by distance of place. In short, that He may be pres- 
ent with us He does not change His place, but communicates to us 
from heaven the virtue of His flesh as though it were present. — 
Calvin : Commentary on 1 Cor. XL , 23-26. 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 185 

in that sense spiritual, is nevertheless personal, real, 
and objective ; that is, outside and independent of our 
apprehensions of it. This spiritual but real presence 
of Christ is specially promised and covenanted to us in 
the Lord's Supper. The consecrated bread and wine 
are not merely the symbols of His body and blood, but 
the Divine seals of the covenant whereby Christ and 
all His benefits are not only represented, but applied to 
us ; and therefore their use is the Koivcovca, the actual 
participation of Christ's body and blood by every believ- 
ing communicant. " If they are ' seals ' of the covenant, 
they must, of course, as a legal form of investiture, ac- 
tually convey the grace represented to those to whom it 
belongs ; as a deed conveys an estate, or the key, handed 
over in the presence of witnesses, the possession of a 
house from the owner to the renter. ... It is the au- 
thoritative appointment of Christ that these signs, rightly 
used, shall truly represent and convey the grace they 
signify." 1 The grace signified is the fulness of the 
Godhead dwelling bodily in Christ (Col. ii. 9). His 
body and blood are specially mentioned and emphasized, 
because it is through His humanity that the Divine 
nature is brought into union with us and His Divine 
power made efficacious for our salvation, and also be- 
cause it is in regard to His coming in the flesh, His sac- 
rificial death, and His glorification as our representative 
that our faith most needs to be confirmed. 

This will be more apparent in our answer to the 
second question, What does the believer receive in the 

1 Dr. A. A. Hodge, Commentary on the Westminster Confession, 
p. 448. The sacrament "is a help by which we may be engrafted 
into the body of Christ, or, already engrafted, may be more and more 
united to Him, nntil the union is completed in heaven " (Calvin's 
Institutes, book iv. chap. xvii. 33). 



186 THE MINISTRY AXD SACRAMENTS. 

Lord's Supper ? The unbeliever receives nothing but 
bread and wine. Here the Eeformed doctrine differs 
radically from both the Eomish and the Lutheran. 1 
The unbelieving communicant is guilty of or concerning 
the body and blood of the Lord, not because he eats 
and drinks them without faith, but because, having no 
true faith, he does not eat and drink them at all. 2 They 
are present and offered to him as truly as to the be- 
liever ; but he neither discerns nor receives them. He 
is guilty, not because he is personally unworthy, as all 
communicants are, but because he eats and drinks un- 
worthily, in a way not suitable to the nature and design 
of the sacrament. The thing there signified, Christ truly 
exhibits and offers to all who sit down at that spiritual 
feast, 3 But just as the rain falling on the hard rock 
runs away because it cannot penetrate, so the unbe- 
lieving repel the grace of God, and prevent it from 
reaching them. " They bring death on themselves, not 
by receiving Christ unworthily, but by rejecting Him." 4 
But the believing communicant receives and appro- 
priates that which the unbeliever ignores and rejects. 

1 Although, ignorant and wicked men receive the outward ele- 
ments in this sacrament, yet they receive not the thing signified 
thereby. — Westminster Confession of Faith, 29, 7. 

2 The wicked, and such as be void of lively faith, although 
they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth (as Augustine 
saith) the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, yet in no wise 
are they partakers of Christ : but rather, to their condemnation, do 
eat and drink the sign or sacrament of so great a thing. — Thirty - 
nine Articles, Art. 29. 

3 Christ's body and blood be offered by God unto all, yet they 
are received by such only as have the hand of faith to lay hold on 
Christ ; and these, with the bread and wine, spiritually receive Christ, 
with all His saving graces. The wicked receive only the outward 
elements. — Usher: Body of Divinity, p. 399. 

4 Calvin, Institutes, book iv. ch. xvii. 33. 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 187 

The bread and wine are called Christ's body and blood 
because our Lord, by holding forth these symbols, gives 
us at the same time that of which He has chosen them 
to be the signs and the seals ; for Christ is not a de- 
ceiver, to mock us with empty representations. The 
reality is. conjoined with the sign ; or, in other words, 
we do not less truly become participants in Christ's 
body and blood in respect of their spiritual efficacy than 
we partake of the bread and wine. 

It should be remembered, however, that the body and 
blood of Christ cannot be separated from Christ Him- 
self, and that no saving benefit can be received from 
Him unless we are vitally united to His person. His 
body and blood represent His whole person and offices, 
His merits, the sacrificial virtue of His death, and all 
His benefits, both of grace and of glory. This is evi- 
dent from His own words in John vi. 51-57 ; and this 
mode of speaking is adopted especially with reference 
to the Lord's Supper, because we cannot be made par- 
takers of His Divine nature except in and through His 
humanity. " For the flesh of Christ is the conduit that 
conveys the graces of the Godhead and the graces of 
the Spirit of Christ into our souls, which otherwise than 
by His body we could not receive." 1 It is plainly the 
doctrine of the Standards of the Presbyterian Church 
that the believing communicant receives not only the 
sacrificial virtue of Christ's death, but Christ Himself 
in all the fulness of His Divine and human nature. 
" Sacraments are holy signs and seals to represent Christ 
and His benefits, and to confirm our interest in Rim.'" 2 
"Wherein Christ and the benefits of the New Cove- 
nant are represented sealed and applied to believers." 3 

1 Isaac Ambrose's Looking to Jesus, p. 298. 

2 Confession, 27, 1. 8 Shorter Catechism, 92. 



188 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

In the Lord's Supper believers " are made partakers of 
His body and blood with all His benefits;' 1 " feed upon 
His body and blood, and have their union and com- 
munion with Him confirmed," 2 " receive and apply unto . 
themselves Christ crucified, and all the benefits of His 
death." 3 Our singing is often more orthodox than our 
preaching. Many a Zwinglian sacramental address 
has been contradicted, if not corrected, by such a hymn 

as this: — 

" Together with these symbols, Lord, 
Thy blessed self impart, 
And let Thy holy flesh and blood 
Eeed the believing heart." 

This leads us to a third question, — as to the mode 
of feeding on Christ, eating His flesh and drinking His 
blood in the Holy Supper. The great battle-ground of 
all sacramental discussions on this point is the discourse 
of Christ in the sixth chapter of John's Gospel. "We 
cannot agree with those who deny all distinctive and 
transcendent meaning to that wonderful discourse, and 
make it only, a highly figurative repetition of what 
Christ had already taught about the necessity of our 
believing in Him. The saying, " It is the spirit that 
quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing : the words that 
I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life" 4 so 
often dogmatically quoted to sustain this view, seems 
to us to point in the opposite direction, and to indicate 
that the theme of the discourse is not so much faith in 
Christ, which He had frequently described in far sim- 
pler words, but that vital union with Himself, and that 
personal participation through His flesh in His eternal 
life, of which faith is only the instrumental cause. 

1 Shorter Catechism, 96. 2 Larger Catechism, 168. 

8 Larger Catechism, 170. 4 Verse 63. 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 189 

This is a mystery unspeakably greater than our exercise 
of faith. It is co-ordinate with the incarnation itself. 
Whether the discourse refers directly and prophetically 
to the Lord's Supper or not, it certainly treats of the 
subject which is the inmost core of the holy sacrament ; 
namely, the life which is hid with Christ in God, and 
nourished by feeding on Christ, which He declares to 
be the same thing as eating His flesh and drinking His 
blood. 1 

How the soul feeds on Christ's body and blood, is an 
open question among the Eeformed Churches. It is 
agreed on all sides that the eating or feeding is by 
faith ; but whether faith and eating are the same thing, 
is a disputed point. Do we feed on Christ, eat His 
flesh and drink His blood every time and wherever we 
believe on Him, or is this language applicable only to a 
peculiar exercise of faith in connection with the Lord's 
Supper? The Zurich and Helvetic Confessions main- 
tain that "eating is believing, and believing is eating," 
and that "this eating takes place as often and whenever 
a man believes in Christ." Calvin admits that " eating is 
by faith, and that no other eating can be imagined. But," 

1 John vi. 33-51, 56. "The mystery of our union with Christ, 
which in this discourse is expressed in words, is precisely the same 
which Jesus desired to express by an act in the Holy Supper " 
(Godet on John vi.). " It affords a key to interpret the sacramental 
phraseology applied to the Supper" (Bannerman on Church of 
Christ, ii., 139). "Jesus purposely framed His words so skilfully 
that they would apply in their strict literal sense to the enjoyment of 
Himself, and yet that afterwards the same words should by conse- 
quence be appropriate to express the most august mystery of the 
Holy Supper when that should be instituted" (Bengel , Commentary 
on John vi.). 

" We are not at liberty to say that the discussion in John vi. was 
intended to be a commentary on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. 
But the ordinance, for all that is blessed and real in its observance, 



190 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

he adds, " there is this difference between their mode of 
speaking and mine : according to them, to eat is merely 
to believe ; while I maintain that the flesh of Christ is 
eaten by believing, that eating is the effect and fruit 
of faith. This difference is little in words, but not in 
reality." 

We fully agree with Calvin on this point. The dis- 
tinction on which he insists is very important, as indi- 
cating a correct use of language. To say that because 
we eat by faith, therefore faith is eating, is about as 
logical as to maintain that whatever we do by our hand 
is our hand. Christ dwells in our hearts by faith ; is 
this dwelling of Christ in us nothing more than our 
own faith ? Doubtless faith itself is always and every- 
where essentially the same. But it does many and 
various things. We have a catalogue of its heroes and 

O CD 

a record of its achievements in the eleventh chapter of 
Hebrews. Does every Christian, as often as he believes, 
do all that was achieved by these ancient worthies ? 
But Calvin's distinction between faith and the results 
achieved by it is still more important in its special 
application to the Lord's Supper. The doctrine that 
" faith is eating, and eating is faith," is the very essence 
of the Zwinglian theory. If "this eating takes place 
as often and whenever a man believes in Christ," then 
it follows necessarily that the Lord's Supper is simply a 
sign and remembrancer to assist our faith. A vine, or 
a door, or a flower of the field, when they remind us of 
the Saviour, and quicken our faith in Him, are just as 

refers us to that sermon. The essential point in the sermon which 
we transfer to the Eucharist is, that in it we are called in a true, 
though spiritual sense, to eat and drink the body and blood of 
the Son of God" (Marshall Lang on the Last Supper of our 
Lord, p. 92). 



THE LOED'S SUEEEE. 191 

truly the communion of His body and blood as the 
bread we break and the cup of blessing we bless in the 
Holy Supper. According to this theory, logically carried 
out, we have not seven, but seventy times seven sacra- 
ments, and the Lord's Supper is no more sacred, and 
has no more efficacy as a means of grace, than a thou- 
sand natural objects around us. We shrink back from 
such conclusions, and therefore reject the premises on 
which they rest. We believe there is a peculiar exercise 
of faith, suitable to the occasion and to the special 
manifestations of Christ in the Holy Sacrament, by 
which the believing soul feeds on Him. The teaching 
of the Zurich and Helvetic Confessions on this subject 
is peculiar to themselves. It is not found in any other 
of the Reformed Confessions. The Westminster Stan- 
dards give no sanction to it. The earlier Scotch Con- 
fession and Catechism, which were superseded by those 
of the Westminster Assembly, are very explicit in repu- 
diating the whole Zwinglian theory, including the point 
we are now considering. The views of the Westminster 
divines on all questions relating to the sacraments were 
thoroughly Calvinistic. 

John Owen, the prince of all the Puritan theologians, 
strongly insists that both the manifestation of Christ 
and our participation of Him in the Lord's Supper " are 
expressed in such a manner as to demonstrate them to 
be peculiar, — such as are not to be obtained in any 
other way. . . . There is in it an eating and drinking 
of the body and blood of Christ, with a spiritual incor- 
poration thence ensuing, which are peculiar to this ordi- 
nance. Herein is a peculiar exercise of faith and a 
peculiar participation of Christ." 1 

1 Owen's Works, v. 8, 560. 



LECTURE VII. 

THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS. 

ANY religion adapted to the constitution of human 
nature must have its external rites and cere- 
monies. The worship of God in spirit and in truth 
does not imply the absence of outward forms, but 
only the subordination of the form to the spirit, even as 
the body is subject to the soul. " That is not first which 
is spiritual, but that which is natural ; and afterward 
that which is spiritual " (1 Cor. xv. 46). It was so in 
the creation, when God formed man of the dust of the 
ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; 
and it is so in the nevj creation. 

Man's dual nature has been recognized and provided 
for in all God's redemptive dealings with our fallen 
race. The Old Testament economy was full of natural 
symbolism addressed to the soul through the bodily 
senses. The burning bush, the pillar of fire and cloud, 
the ark of the covenant, the altar of sacrifice, and the 
whole ritual system made after the pattern showed to 
Moses in the holy mount, were the signs of God's pres- 
ence and power among His people. Besides these out- 
ward signs, which have accomplished their temporary 
purpose, and been abolished by the development of the 
old dispensation into the new, there were two divinely 
appointed ceremonies which were not only the signs of 
God's presence, but the seals of His covenant with His 
people and the pledges of His immanent power in the 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS. 193 

Church. Circumcision and the passover were not 
Levitical nor Jewish ceremonies, but seals of the right- 
eousness which is by faith. Their form has been 
changed by the same authority that instituted them; 
but their substance, their significance, and their Divine 
efficacy continue. 1 Baptism is the circumcision of 
Christ (Col. ii. 11). The Lord's Supper is the feast 
which we keep because " Christ our passover is 
sacrificed for us" (1 Cor. v. 7). These two ordi- 
nances we call "the holy sacraments." It is useless 
to define the meaning or to justify the use of this 
name by an appeal to its etymology. The word sacra- 
mentum may be the correct Latin translation of the 
Greek fivo-Tijpiov, or " mystery," and the oath by which 
a Eoman soldier bound himself to his commander 
and to his country may illustrate to some extent the 
allegiance we owe to the Captain of our salvation and 
to His Church ; but all this is very far from determining 
the meaning or the use of baptism and the Lord's Sup- 

1 The sacraments of the Old Testament in regard to the spiritual 
things thereby signified and exhibited were for substance the same 
with those of the New. — Westminster Confession, chap, xxvii. 5. 

Whatever therefore is now exhibited to us in the sacraments, the 
Jews formerly received in theirs ; namely, Christ with His spiritual 
riches. The same efficacy which ours possess they experienced in 
theirs ; namely, that they were seals of the Divine favor towards 
them in regard to the hope of eternal salvation. — Calvin : Insti- 
tutes, book iv. chap. xiv. 23. 

While the former shadowed forth a promised Christ, the latter 
bears testimony to Him as already come and manifested. . . . There 
is no doubt that if you compare time with time, the grace of the 
Spirit is now more abundantly displayed. . . . Both testify that the 
paternal kindness of God and the grace of the Spirit are offered in 
Christ, but ours more clearly and splendidly. In both there is an 
exhibition of Christ, but in ours it is more full and complete. — 
Ibid., 20, 22, 26. 

13 



194 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

per. The generic name of " sacraments/' as now used by 
the whole Christian Church, separated and sanctified 
from its original uses, includes all that is taught in 
Scripture and in Christian experience in regard to these 
holy ordinances. All Protestants hold that there are 
only two sacraments, not seven, as the Church of Borne 
teaches. But the contention between us at this point 
is chiefly one of definition. We believe that marriage 
and ordination to the ministry are Divine and sacred 
ordinances. But we do not call these things "sacra- 
ments ; " for according to our definition, which is based 
upon the facts recorded in the New Testament, " a sacra- 
ment is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ, wherein 
by sensible signs Christ and the benefits of the new cov- 
enant are represented, sealed, and applied to believers." 

Baptism and the Lord's Supper are the only ordi- 
nances instituted by Christ for these specific purposes. 
They are committed to the visible Church as Divinely 
appointed instruments for the gathering and perfecting 
of the saints in this life to the end of the world ; and 
Christ by His own presence and spirit, according to 
His promise, makes them effectual for these ends. We 
therefore separate baptism and the Lord's Supper from 
all other Divine ordinances, and distinguish them by the 
name of " sacraments." We are not strenuous for the 
name, but for the revealed truths, the recorded facts, 
and the blessed experiences which it represents. While 
the sacraments are not merely badges of distinction be- 
tween Christians and the world, and of union among 
themselves, their office as outward signs is not to be 
ignored nor undervalued. They are by Christ's ap- 
pointment the insignia of His Church and kingdom in 
the world. 1 

1 The kingdom Christ was founding was to be everywhere 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS. 195 

The preaching of the Word and the observance of the 
sacraments " are the symbols by which the Church is 
discerned; for these cannot anywhere exist without 
producing fruit and prospering by the blessing of 
God." 1 

Nor can the preaching of the word be separated from 
the observance of the sacraments. They are counter- 
parts in one consistent system. Christ has joined them 
together, and for any man to put them asunder or to 
exalt one above the other as a Divinely appointed means 
of grace, is to contemn Christ's authority, to ignore the 
example of His Apostles, and to mutilate the marks by 
which the Church may be identified. No less presump- 
tuous is the refusal to recognize these marks where they 
do exist. Where the Gospel is faithfully preached and 
the sacraments administered with a manifest regard to 
Christ's own words in their institution, and where these 
means of grace evidently bring forth the fruits they 
were designed to produce, there, says Calvin, " the face 
of the Church appears, without deception or ambiguity ; 
and no man may with impunity spurn her authority, 
or reject her admonitions, or resist her counsels, or make 

imperium in imperio ; its members were to be at the same time 
members of secular states and national bodies. It was therefore a 
matter of extreme importance to preserve the distinctness of the 
Christian society, and to prevent its members from being drawn 
apart from each other by the distraction of worldly claims and 
engagements. For this purpose certain sacramenta, or solemn ob- 
servances, renewing and reminding them of their union, were most 
desirable, and Christ ordained two, — the one expressing the dis- 
tinctness of the Church from the world, and the other the unity of the 
Church within itself. — Ecce Homo, p. 186. This is a very incom- 
plete account of the design and function of the sacraments, but it is 
true, and highly important so far as it goes. 
1 Calvin's Institutes, book iv. chap. i. 10. 



196 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

sport of her censures, far less revolt from her and violate 
her unity. For such is the value which the Lord sets 
upon the communion of His Church that all who con- 
tumaciously alienate themselves from any Christian 
society in which the true ministry of His Word and 
sacraments is maintained, He regards as deserters of 
religion." 1 This is strong language, but none too 
strong for the case. To admit that the Gospel is 
preached, and that the sacraments are administered 
with a sincere purpose to conform to the terms of their 
institution, and that the gracious fruits these ordinances 
were appointed to produce do actually appear in con- 
nection with them, and yet to maintain that, because 
some theory of church order or some ceremonial of wor- 
ship not explicitly enjoined in Scripture is rejected, 
therefore the Christian communities which bear these 
marks of the visible Church are no part of the Church 
at all, and the sacraments they observe are no sacra- 
ments at all, is something more than inconsistency ; it 
is the very essence of schism. 2 From such schism 
" good Lord, deliver us ! " 

1 Calvin's Institutes, book iv. chap. i. 10. 

2 When we say that the pure ministry of the Word and the pure 
celebration of the sacraments is a fit pledge and earnest, so that we 
may safely recognize the Church in every society in which both exist, 
our meaning is that we are never to discard it so long as these re- 
main, though it may otherwise teem with numerous faults. Nay, 
even in the administration of the Word and sacraments defects may 
creep in, which ought not to alienate us from its communion. — 
Calvin : Institutes, book iv. chap. i. 12. 

As if for the purpose of rebuking and putting to shame the dis- 
dainful exclusiveness which is so apt to infect certain ecclesiastical 
bodies, the Lord seems to take pleasure in raising up choice saints 
and admirable divines, powerful preachers and apostolic missionaries, 
not only in the great historical churches, but occasionally also in the 
obscurest of the Christian denominations. — Binnie on the Church, 
p. 16. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS. 197 

The sacraments being among the Divinely appointed 
marks of the visible Church, it is very important for us 
to understand, — 

1. The grounds of their obligation. 

2. By whom they are to be administered. 

3. The mode of their administration. 

4. The conditions of admission to these sealing 
ordinances. 

1. The observance of the sacraments is obligatory 
upon all who profess the true religion, and is part of 
that profession. This obligation rests primarily upon 
the explicit precepts of Christ. For the precept to 
" baptize all nations, teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I have commanded you," is an integral part 
of the commission to preach the Gospel; and among 
those things which Christ commanded, none is more 
explicit than "this do in remembrance of Me." The 
administration of the sacraments is, therefore, an essen- 
tial part of preaching the Gospel, and the faith which 
believes the Gospel is inseparably connected with their 
observance. 

But the obligation does not rest only upon prescrip- 
tive rule. All, Christian obedience, through the gracious 
reward inseparably connected with it, rises above the 
hard lines of duty into the broader and brighter sphere 
of privilege. And this is especially true of positive as 
distinguished from moral precepts. A Divine command- 
ment which translates the law written on the heart, and 
appeals for its sanctions to the approval of reason, the 
monitions of conscience, and the natural consequences 
by which sin becomes its own punishment, is not more 
sacred to a true believer than one which has no basis 
in the constitution of our nature, but is designed by 
sovereign grace to express the love and pledge the favor 



198 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

of God. Such precepts, just because their only sanc- 
tions are the Divine authority and the Divine blessing 
which accompanies obedience, appeal with peculiar 
force to the " law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus." 
Whatever force there may be in the Scholastic distinc- 
tion between the necessity of precept and the necessity of 
means, we cannot admit that it has any application to 
the observance of the sacraments; and above all, we 
cannot agree with the Zwinglian writers on the subject 
who insist that our obligation to observe them rests 
simply on the necessity of precept. If we must choose 
between the two, our views of the nature and design of 
the sacraments would compel us to base their obser- 
vance rather on the necessity of means. But we do not 
admit in this case the distinction between these two 
grounds of obligation ; we insist equally upon both. The 
Saviour's precept implies and includes the promise of 
special blessing upon a loving obedience, and Christian 
experience confirms the promise. It is true, indeed, 
that God is not limited in the dispensation of His grace 
by any outward form, even when it bears the seal of 
His own authority. But we are limited in the rightful 
expectation of His blessing by His positive appoint- 
ments. We have no right to plead the gracious excep- 
tions He has made, under entirely different conditions, 
as a ground of hope for ourselves. There is no com- 
parison between our case and that of the penitent thief 
on the cross. We are not cast away upon a desert 
island, where there are no ordained ministers and no 
Christian ordinances. See, here is water: what doth 
hinder us to be baptized? The table of the Lord is 
spread before us by the same Providence that has 
brought us within the hearing of the Gospel, and the 
voice of Christ comes ringing down to our ears through 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS. 199 

all the Christian ages, saying, without qualification or 
exception, " This do" To insist that this precept is not 
binding upon us, and not necessary to our salvation, 
because God has not enforced it upon others who never 
heard it or had no opportunity to obey it, is to set up 
our private judgment against Christ's holy ordinances, 
and to impeach His wisdom in their institution. With 
the same propriety the blind man might have refused 
to be anointed with clay or to go wash in the pool of 
Siloam. All such reasoning belongs to the same school 
of philosophy with the contention of Naaman about the 
waters of Jordan. 1 

All the Keformed Confessions teach that the sacra- 
ments are effectual means of grace and salvation. They 
are "institutions which God has ordained to be the 
ordinary channels of grace ; that is, of the supernatural 
influences of the Holy Ghost to the souls of men." 2 
As means and channels of grace, the sacraments stand 
on precisely the same footing with the preaching of the 
Gospel. " This do in remembrance of Me " was spoken 
by the same lips that said, " Go, preach My Gospel" 
The two precepts rest on the same authority, and are 
designed to accomplish the same end. 

" Let this," says Calvin, " be a fixed point, that the 
office of the sacraments differs not from the office of 
the Word of God ; and this is to hold forth and offer 
Christ to us, and in Him the treasures of heavenly 
grace." 3 The Word and the sacraments are in the same 
line ; they are means of grace in the same sense and in 
the same way. 4 In this all the Keformed theologians 

1 See Appendix, Lecture VII. (A). 

2 Hodge's Theology, iii. 416. 

3 Institutes, iii. 503. 

4 The efficacy of the sacraments depends upon their Divine 



200 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

are agreed ; and some who are called High Churchmen 
claim no more. 1 Why, then, should we hesitate to 
affirm that the Lord's Supper has the same necessity of 
means with the Word of God ? 2 It is nothino- to the 

o 

purpose to insist that the Scriptures speak more fre- 
quently of the importance of the Word than of the 
sacraments. One such precept as "Go, teach all na- 
tions, baptizing them," "This do in remembrance of 
Me," is just as binding as a thousand would be. The 
hearing and believing of the Word is thus joined with 
baptism, and the remembrance of Christ is joined with 
the observance of the Lord's Supper ; and that not by 
an arbitrary command, but by a gracious appointment 
which makes the sacraments equally with the Word 
instruments, channels, and effectual means of grace. 
The sacraments and the Word have this in common, 
that they are exhibitions and conveyances of saving 
truth. Jesus Christ "is set forth evidently crucified 
among you," in the one as in the other. "A sacrament," 
says Augustine, " is a visible Word, because it presents 

appointment as means and channels of grace. They were not de- 
vised by man as suitable in themselves to produce a moral impres- 
sion, but they were appointed by God, and we are commanded to use 
them as means of grace. — Dr. A. A. Hodge : Commentary on the 
Confession, p. 454. 

1 The Lord's Supper is an actual channel or vehicle of grace to 
the soul. It stands in this respect on the same footing with prayer, 
reading the Scriptures, public worship, and sermons. Only we be- 
lieve that it takes precedence of them all as means of a higher grace 
and the instrument of a closer communion with God. — Goulburn : 
Personal Religion, p. 18. 

2 Many who do not scruple to speak of the Word of God as a 
means through which a direct and supernatural power is exerted on 
the hearts of men, refuse to say the same of the sacraments, because 
they think it is not warranted in the Scripture, and tends to supersti- 
tion. — Candlish on the Sacraments, p. 39. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS. 201 

the promise of God as in a picture." Calvin calls it 
" a living sermon." If God has chosen two methods of 
revealing His truth, one by articulate words and the 
other by sensible signs, what right have we to say that 
we will hear the one and not observe the other ? And 
how vain is the attempt to justify our self-will and 
vindicate our private judgment against God's express 
appointment by insisting without any warrant of Scrip- 
ture that the one method of revelation is more efficaci- 
ous and important than the other ? It is no answer to 
this question to say that the sacraments have no in- 
herent efficacy. This is equally true of the Word. 
There is no Divine power in the syllables or sound of 
the Gospel, any more than there is in the bread and 
wine of the communion. The truth, indeed, of which 
the words of the Gospel are the outward signs, has a 
natural adaptation to the mind, as the light has to the 
eye ; and this also is equally true of the visible Word 
in the sacraments. But the mind of man, in his fallen 
and unregenerate state, is blind to things of the Spirit of 
God, however they are exhibited. The Gospel, whether 
in the Word or the sacraments, is the wisdom and 
power of God to salvation, only by the blessing of 
Christ and the working of His Spirit in them who by 
faith receive it. God can give all that is represented in 
the sacraments without the use of them, and He can 
give all that is revealed and promised in the Gospel 
without the hearing of it. He does this, as we all be- 
lieve, in the case of all who die in infancy ; and how 
much farther the aboundings of His grace may reach, 
we are not competent to affirm. 1 The question is not 

1 We know from the Bible itself that God is no respecter of per- 
sons, bnt in every nation he that feareth God is accepted of Him 
(Acts x. 34, 35). No one doubts that it is in the power of God to 



202 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

what He can do, but what we have reason to believe He 
will do in behalf of those who have the opportunity 
both to hear His Word and to observe His sacramental 
ordinances. It seems to us the height of presumption 
to teach men that they may wilfully neglect and set 
aside any of the means of grace He has chosen and 
consecrated, and yet hope for the benefits of His salva- 
tion. If the sacraments are not only signs, but seals of 
Christ and His benefits, when we refuse to receive and 
apply them, we presumptuously rest our hopes of sal- 
vation upon an unsealed title which has not been rati- 
fied and delivered to us according to the law of the 
new covenant. 

2. The universal obligation of the sacraments being 
conceded, it becomes a very important question, Who 
are authorized to administer them ? To this question the 
Westminster Confession gives an emphatic answer : 
" Neither sacrament may be dispensed by any but by a 
minister of the Word lawfully ordained." 2 For this posi- 
tion there is no very explicit warrant in Scripture. The 
two most important passages quoted in its support are 
Christ's command to " Go, teach all nations, baptizing 
them " (Mat. xxviii. 19), which was given, not to the 
whole body of the disciples, but to the eleven, and Paul's 
saying, * Let a man so account of us as of the ministers 
of Christ and stewards of ikz, mysteries of God," — " the 
mysteries of God " being understood by many expositors 
as synonymous with the sacraments. It must be con- 
fessed that these proof-texts are not conclusive. The 
most that can be claimed for them is that they fall in 
with the idea that the administration of the sacraments 

call whom He pleases from among the heathen, and to reveal to them 
enough truth to secure their salvation. — Hodge : Theology, hi, 476. 
1 Confession, chap, xxvii. 4. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OE THE SACRAMENTS. 203 

is the prerogative of the ministry. That idea is accord- 
ing to the eternal fitness of things. While it is not 
plainly expressed in Scripture, it is assumed and im- 
plied. Whether the sacraments are among " the mys- 
teries of God " or not, they are certainly the most sacred 
rites of Christianity, and belong to the innermost sanc- 
tuary of Christian worship. There is therefore a mani- 
fest propriety in committing their administration to the 
Christian ministry. All Christians feel this in regard even 
to marriage. They wish to have the ceremony performed 
by one who officially represents the sanctions of religion 
and is authorized to pronounce its benediction. And if 
this universal Christian sentiment is well founded, much 
more so is the opinion that the sacraments, which signify 
and seal the union of the soul with Christ, ought to be 
dispensed only by " a minister of the Word lawfully 
ordained." The force of this reasoning is universally 
felt and practically recognized. Christian denomina- 
tions (for example, the Methodists) who have "lay 
preachers " as part of their working force, do not com- 
mit the sacraments to them. Those Presbyterians who 
hold the highest views of the office of ruling elder, 
making it co-ordinate with that of the minister, and in- 
sisting that, as presbyters, ruling elders ought to partici- 
pate in the ordination of ministers, have never, so far as 
we know, carried out their theory to its logical conclu- 
sion, by claiming that ruling elders ought to administer 
baptism and the Lord's Supper. Even denominations 
(for example, the Baptists) who hold theoretically that 
any member of the royal priesthood of believers has the 
inherent right to administer the sacraments, are care- 
ful to restrict the exercise of the right by the special ap- 
pointment of the church, and to limit such appointment 
to an emergency. Dr. A. H. Strong says : " Although 



204 THE MINISTRY A>T> SACRAMENTS. 

the pastor administers the ordinances, this is not his 
main work, nor is the church absolutely dependent upon 
him in the matter. In an emergency, any other mem- 
ber appointed by the church may administer them with 
equal propriety, the church always determining who are 
fit subjects of the ordinances, and constituting him their 
organ in administering them.' 5 J In practice, if we are 
correctly informed, the emergency rarely occurs. There 
is, however, a notable exception to this prevailing 
rule. The Church of Eome authorizes lay baptism in 
the case of dying infants when a priest cannot be ob- 
tained ; and some Episcopal writers defend the practice. 
The late Dr. Henry Hopkins, bishop of the Episcopal 
Church in Vermont, was a strenuous advocate of such 
lay baptism, the special object of his contention being a 
protest against the practice of rebaptizing proselytes 
from other denominations. How far his views are 
adopted, we are not informed. The ground of this ex- 
ception in regard to infants, when made by Eomanists 
or Episcopalians, is the supposed necessity of baptism 
to salvation. It is a concession to parental anxiety in 
behalf of dying children. But the concession is more 
creditable to the kindly feelings than to the doctrinal 
consistency of those who make it. It sate the root 
of their whole theory concerning the validity of the 
sacraments. I:. as they maintain, the efficacy of these 
holy ordinances depends, as an essential condition, upon 
the grace of orders, and this grace is transmitted from 
its depository in the Apostles only through episcopal 
ordination, how is it possible in any case to se: aside 
this Divine constitution, and yet retain the validity of 
the sacraments ? And if this may be done in one case, 
why not in another ? If baptism may be lawfully and 
1 Strong's Systematic Theology, p. 511. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS. 205 

effectually administered by the physician or the nurse 
to a dying infant, why not, under similar circumstances, 
to a dying man ? And if to the dying, why not to the 
living ? — who are, in fact, all dying, seeing that " in the 
midst of life we are in death." Moreover, if one of 
the sacraments may be lawfully administered by those 
who are not episcopally ordained, why not both ? It 
will perhaps be answered that the one is more necessary 
to salvation than the other. But even if this distinc- 
tion be admitted, it has no pertinency to the question 
we are considering, which is not the necessity of the 
sacraments to salvation, but simply their validity. The 
theory which bases that validity upon the grace of 
orders received from an apostolic depository through a 
particular mode of ordination, breaks down and is aban- 
doned by its strongest advocates as cruelly impracticable 
when it is put to the test of an emergency. Blessed be 
their tender-hearted inconsistency ! If they would only 
carry out that inconsistency a little farther, and enlarge 
their views of what constitutes an emergency, the incon- 
sistency would change into harmony, the "contume- 
lious maledictions " of the Church of Eome and their 
echoes among nominal Protestants would die out, and 
beyond these discordant voices there would be peace. 

3. We proceed to consider briefly the form under 
which the sacraments are to be administered. This 
brings us to the margin of the great and bitter contro- 
versy concerning immersion as the only mode of bap- 
tism. But we decline to go very far into these deep 
waters. We hold, of course, to " one Lord, one faith, 
one baptism." But this one baptism is not confined to 
any particular mode of administration ; its validity does 
not depend upon the quantity of water employed, nor 
upon the way in which the water and the person are 



206 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

brought into contact. 1 The Westminster Confession 
takes very broad ground upon this subject when it 
declares (chap, xxviii. 3) that " dipping the person into 
the water is not necessary, but baptism is rightly ad- 
ministered by pouring or sprinkling water upon the 
person." We cannot now rehearse the exegetical and 
historic proofs of this position. It will be sufficient to 
say that we claim to be just as capable of understanding 
the meaning of the original words of Scripture, and 
the records of the Christian Church from the days of the 
Apostles, and quite as sincere in our desire to know and 
obey the truth, as those who insist that dipping is the 
only mode, and belongs to the very essence of the sac- 
rament. If, because we cannot see this subject in the 
light of their eyes, they insist that we, with the great 
majority of the Christian Church in all ages, are unbap- 
tized ; and if, notwithstanding they admit that we have 

1 The word fianTifa, as a religious term, means neither dip nor 
sprinkle, immerse nor pour, nor any other external action in applying 
a fluid to the body, or the body to a fluid, nor any action which is 
limited to one mode of performance. But as a religious term it 
means at all times, to purify or cleanse, — words of a meaning so 
general as not to be confined to any mode, or agent, or means, or 
object, whether material or spiritual, but to leave the widest scope 
for the question as to the mode ; so that in this usage it is in every 
respect a perfect synonym of the word KaOaplgco. — Dr. Edward 
Beecbter : Mode and Subjects of Baptism. 

The testimony of the Didache in regard to the mode of baptism 
prevalent when it was written is as follows : Chap. VII. " 1. Now 
concerning baptism, baptize thus : having first taught all these 
things, baptize ye in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Ghost in living water. 2. And if thou hast not living 
water, baptize into other water ; and if thou canst not in cold, then 
in warm water. 3. But if thou hast neither, pour water thrice upon 
the head, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost." 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS. 207 

received the Holy Ghost as well as they, and are par- 
takers with thern of all that baptism is appointed to 
signify and to seal, they continue to exclude us from 
their communion, we can only marvel at their inconsis- 
tency. Meantime, we will continue cordially to invite 
them to sit with us at the table of our common Lord, 
hoping for the dawning of a brighter and a broader day, 
when so small a matter as the mode of administering a 
sacrament will no longer be permitted to mar the visible 
unity of the Church of Christ. In the universal longing 
for Christian unity, this exclusiveness is beginning to 
weaken, and we believe it must ultimately give way, as 
the iceberg melts in the warm currents of the Gulf 
Stream. And the same remark applies to the question 
of ordination to the ministry. 

Our Lord has given no specific instructions as to the 
forms and ceremonies to be used in the administration 
of His Holy Supper. " This do " has reference simply 
to the eating and drinking of bread and wine in remem- 
brance of Him. The time of the day or of the year 
when this is to be done, the dress and posture and 
words of the administrator, and the bodily attitude of 
the communicants, are left to the decision of Christian 
discretion. 

It was undoubtedly the practice of the Church, in the 
days of the Apostles and for a long time after, to cele- 
brate the Lord's Supper on every Lord's day, and fre- 
quently on other occasions. " To break bread " was one 
chief object in the assembling of Christians. In the 
Church at Jerusalem, in the new joy and sweet fel- 
lowship which followed the Pentecost, it was a daily 
observance. Such frequent communion is generally 
regarded by Presbyterians as a fruit and evidence of 
" Kitualism." Yet Calvin maintains that once a week 



208 THE MINISTRY AXD SACRAMENTS. 

is not too often to observe the sacrament, and he con- 
demns a yearly interval in the severest terms. 1 

Kneeling in the reception of the sacred elements, as 
practised in the Episcopal and Methodist churches, is 
certainly as appropriate and as nearly conformed to the 
reclining posture of Christ and the Apostles at the first 
Lord's Supper, as the sitting attitude observed by Pres- 
byterians. The prejudice that it involves a superstitious 
reverence, and is a mark of popery, is neither intelligent, 
nor just to those who practise it. 

While we believe that everything in the administra- 
tion of the Lord's Supper not prescribed by the precept 
and example of Christ and His Apostles is left to the 
decision of Christian liberty, and desire to cultivate the 
broadest and tenderest charity toward all Christians 
with whom we differ in the exercise of that liberty, we 
feel bound to observe and defend whatever Christ and 
His Apostles have enjoined upon us ; and this applies 
especially to the elements the Saviour chose and conse- 
crated as the symbols of His body and blood. Aside 
altogether from their natural suitableness for the pur- 
pose, "the giving and receiving of bread and vjine 
according to Christ's appointment " 2 is essential to the 
celebration of the sacrament. His death cannot be 
showed forth according to Sis appointment, nor can we 
be made partakers of His body and blood by the sac- 
ramental use of anything but bread and wine. It is 
the bread which we break that is the communion of the 

1 The sacrament might be celebrated in the most becoming 
manner if it were dispensed to the Church very frequently, at least 
once a week. . . „ Most assuredly the custom which prescribes 
communion once a year is an invention of the Devil by what 
instrumentality soever it may have been introduced. — Institutes, 
book iv. chap. xvii. sections 43-46. 

2 Shorter Catechism, p. 96. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS. 209 

body of Christ, and the cup of blessing which we bless 
which is the communion of the blood of Christ. But 
suppose Christians are placed in circumstances in which 
bread cannot be obtained : may they not substitute for 
it some other article of food, such as flesh or fruit ? 
Most assuredly not. " Christ took bread and brake it, 
and gave to His disciples, and said, This do in remem- 
brance of Me." If bread cannot be procured, we are 
precluded by Divine Providence from the use of the 
sacrament; and surely the Saviour will not hold us 
responsible for the failure, nor withhold His grace from 
us on that account. The use of bread in the communion 
is precisely analogous to the use of water in baptism. 
We cannot baptize a man with milk or with sand ; for 
" except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he can- 
not enter into the kingdom of God." Better to remain 
unbaptized than under the plea of necessity to attempt 
to amend Christ's positive institutions. The obligation 
to observe the sacrament ceases when Divine Provi- 
dence renders it impossible ; and God's grace is not so 
tied to the outward ordinance that He cannot separate 
them. What is true of bread in the Holy Communion 
is equally true of wine. That " the cup " and " the fruit 
of the vine" mean wine, and nothing else, no candid 
reader of the New Testament would ever question, if it 
were not necessary to do so in order to maintain a fore- 
gone conclusion. And what is wine ? Let us answer 
in the sober words of Dr. Hodge : — 

" By wine, as prescribed to be used in this ordinance, is to 
be understood 'the juice of the grape,' and the juice of the 
grape in that state which was and is in common use, and in the 
state in which it was known as wine. It was not the juice of 
the grape as it exists in the fruit, but that juice submitted to 
such a process of fermentation as secured its preservation, 

14 



210 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

and gave it the qualities ascribed to it in the Scriptures. 
That otvo? in the Bible, when unqualified by such words as 
1 new ' and ' sweet,' * means the fermented juice of the grape, 
is hardly an open question. It has never been questioned in 
the Church, if we except by a few Christians of the present 
day. . . . Those in the Early Church whose zeal for temper- 
ance led them to exclude wine from the Lord's table were con- 
sistent enough to substitute water. They not only abstained 
from the use of wine and denounced as improbos atque impios 
those who drank it, but they also repudiated animal food 
and marriage, regarding the Devil as their author. They 
soon disappeared from history. The plain meaning of the 
Bible on this subject has controlled the mind of the Church, 
and it is to be hoped will control it till the end of time." 2 

Under whatever forms it is administered, the true 
spirit of the Lord's Supper ought to be preserved. It is 
not a fast, nor a funeral, but a feast in God's banqueting- 
house under His banner of love, — a feast of all that is 
life-giving in the person of Christ, and all that is cheer- 
ing and delightful in the Gospel of His grace. There is 
no damnation in it, and no more danger in its use than 
there is in any other means of grace. It is not the 
crucifixion again, either of the Saviour or of His dis- 
ciples. Its design is to turn our sorrow into joy, and 
fill us with all the fulness of God. Its associations are 
not merely with " that dark and doleful night " when 
the Son of Man was betrayed, but rather with the glory 
which followed and swallowed up His sufferings. He 
does not say, " Do this in remembrance of My death," but 

1 It is evident from Acts ii. 13 that even the new wine would in- 
toxicate when used to excess. "These men are fall of new wine." 
" These are not drunken, as ye suppose." The "new wine " was the 
wine of the last vintage, which at the time of the Pentecost was six 
months old. 

2 Theology, iii. 616. See Appendix, Lecture VII. (C). 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS. 211 

" in remembrance of Me." We come to this feast, not to 
eat of a dead sacrifice, but to receive and feed upon 
Him " who liveth and was dead, and is alive for ever- 
more." For the sacrament signifies and effects our 
communion with Christ in His person, in His offices, 
and in all their precious fruits. It is on our part a 
eucharistic sacrifice, an oblation of all possible praise 
and thanksgiving. And so, as Calvin says, the Lord's 
Supper is medicine to the sick, comfort to the sinner, 
bounty to the poor ; while to the righteous and the rich, 
if any such could be found, it would be of no value. 1 

4. The Grounds of Admission to Sealing Ordinances. — 
Baptism is commonly spoken of as " the initiatory rite " 
of the Christian Church. This language is correct when 
we use the word " initiate " in its true meaning, to sig- 
nify, not the creation, but the acknowledgment and 
first exercise of an existing right. 2 This is admirably 
expressed in Fisher's Catechism : — 

" Does baptism make or constitute persons church mem- 
bers ] No. They are supposed to be church members 
before they are baptized ; and if they are children of profess- 
ing parents, they are born members of the visible Church. 
Why must they be church members before they are bap- 
tized? Because the seals of the covenant can never be 
applied to any but such as are supposed to be in the 
covenant, nor can the privileges of the Church be confirmed 
to any that are without the Church. Why then do our 
Confession and Larger Catechism say that the parties bap- 
tized are solemnly admitted into the visible Church 1 Be- 
cause there is a vast difference between making a person a 
church member who was none before, and the solemnity of 
the admission of one who is already a member. All that 
our Confession and Catechism affirm is that by baptism we are 

1 Institutes, book iv. chap xvii. 42. 

2 See Appendix, Lecture VII. (D). 



212 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

solemnly admitted into the visible Church ; that is, by bap- 
tism we are publicly declared to be church members before, 
and thus have our membership solemnly sealed to us." 

But while baptism is the formal acknowledgment of 
visible church membership, this is but a part, and the 
lowest part, of its meaning and its use. It is " a sacra- 
ment of the ISTew Testament ordained by Jesus Christ, 
to be continued, in His Church until the end of the 
world, not only for the solemn admission of the party 
baptized into the visible Church, but also to be unto 
him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his en- 
grafting into Christ, of regeneration, and of remission of 
sins." 1 " It is a sign and seal of our regeneration and 
engrafting into Christ, and that even to infants" 2 To 

1 The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time 
■wherein it is administered; yet notwithstanding, by the right use 
of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, bat really 
exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost to such, whether of age 
or infants, as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of 
God's own will in His appointed time. — Westminster Confession, 
chap, xxviii. 6. 

2 Westminster Confession, chap, xxviii. 1, and Larger Catechism, 
177. We call attention, especially of our Presbyterian brethren, to 
these statements of our Standards. Candor compels us to admit that 
they are stronger and more explicit in the declaration that baptism 
signifies and seals the regeneration of infants than the statements 
of the Episcopal liturgy. We are bound to accord to our Episcopal 
brethren the right to define their own terms. The great majority of 
their most esteemed expositors understand the word " regeneration " 
to mean, not a moral, but an ecclesiastical change, which secures in- 
deed certain spiritual blessings, but does not involve either the reno- 
vation of the child's nature or the certainty of its salvation. In 
other words, they mean by "regeneration" what we mean by 
"church membership," coupled with the reception of what we call 
"common," as distinguished from "saving" grace. 

Waterland, who was one of their ablest writers on the subject in the 
last century, maintains this (see Works, iv. 421). Dr. Harold Browne, 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS. 213 

apply that sacred sign and seal to any whom we know 
or believe to be unregcnerate, is a solemn mockery. But, 
it will be asked, how can we know that an infant is 
regenerate and grafted into Christ ? I answer by asking, 
How can we know that an adult is regenerate ? We can- 
not know it in either case, for only God can read the heart. 
We baptize both the adult and the infant, not upon 
demonstrative, but upon probable evidence ; and we do 
not hesitate to affirm that the Divine completeness of 
the sacrament, the union between the outward sign and 
the inward and spiritual grace, fails oftener in the case 
of adults, who are baptized upon their own confession, 
than in the case of infants, who are baptized upon the 
confession of parents and trained according to covenant 
promises. The infant is not regenerated by the baptism : 
we have no sympathy nor toleration for any such me- 
chanical religion ; but the presumption that it is regen- 

whose exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles is a text-book in Epis- 
copal seminaries in this country, sustains the same position (see 
Browne on " Thirty-nine Articles," p. 633). Bishop Brownell, in 
his elaborate "Commentary on the Prayer-Book," sanctions the same 
opinion, and quotes many authorities to show that it is the accepted 
doctrine of the Episcopal Church (see "Commentary on Prayer- 
Book," p. 418). 

Whether this is a right use of the word "regeneration," is a 
question not pertinent to this discussion. According to them the 
right to define their own terms, and admitting that this definition is 
a sufficient answer to the charge that their service teaches "bap- 
tismal regeneration" in the sense that is so offensive to Presbyterian 
ears, our objections to that service are based upon other grounds : 
(1) that it seems to ignore the whole idea of the household cove- 
nant ; (2) that it puts the children of the Church and the children 
of the world upon a common level ; (3) that it substitutes the awk- 
ward and unscriptural device of "sponsors in baptism" for the 
sacred relations of believing parents and of those who stand in 
loco parentis. 



214 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

erate, which is in all cases the antecedent ground of 
baptism, is co-extensive with the Divine warrant for its 
reception of the sacramental sign. Wherever God au- 
thorizes us to apply the Divine seal, He makes Himself 
responsible for writing the spiritual document with His 
own finger on the heart. 

The one essential condition for the baptism of a child 
is a sufficient security that it will be trained by precept 
and example as a child of God and an heir of the 
kingdom of heaven ; and upon the assumption that this 
condition is honestly stipulated and will be faithfully 
fulfilled, we have a right to assume also that the child 
either is or will certainly be regenerated. 

Our hesitation to believe this indicates, not a high, 
but a low, view of regeneration as a work of God's sov- 
ereign grace. We limit the Holy One of Israel in this 
mighty work by connecting it inseparably with what we 
call "conversion," and by judging of its existence by our 
tests of religious experience. The Divine grace, which 
abounds in Christ beyond the abounding of sin, and be- 
yond our ability to define or even to conceive of its 
working, is stronger in every point of human existence 
than the fallen and corrupt nature we inherit from 
Adam. We all admit in theory that this Divine grace 
can change the nature of a child, before its birth, or at 
its birth, or at the time of its baptism, as easily as at 
any subsequent period of life. We all see the evidence 
that, in consistency with the law of heredity, God fulfils 
not only His threatening to visit the sins of the fathers 
upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of 
them that hate Him, but also His promise to show mercy 
to thousands of generations of them that love Him and 
keep His commandments. The proverb of Matthew 
Henry, that "grace does not run in the blood, but 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS. 215 

deviltry does/' is not altogether true. Hereditary gra- 
cious influences control and modify the nature of chil- 
dren born of Christian parents. The doctrine of total 
depravity is not the absurd notion that any one is as 
bad as he can be, nor that all are equally bad at their 
birth. Some are born less depraved than others. The 
grace of God makes them to differ. Samuel and John 
the Baptist and Timothy are not exceptional cases, but 
specimens of those who are filled with the Holy Ghost 
even from their mother's womb. " Of such is the king- 
dom of God " does not mean merely that the kingdom 
is, composed of adults who have been converted and be- 
come as little children, but that it is largely composed, 
in heaven and on earth, of little ones whom the Saviour 
has taken into His arms and blessed. The typical little 
one whom He set in the midst was a " young Christian," 
and not merely an unsophisticated child who might one 
day become a Christian. Connecting the sovereignty 
of God's grace with His covenant promises to believers 
and their children, we maintain that every child lawfully 
baptized ■ — not because of its baptism, but because of 
the relations and promises of which baptism is the sign 
and seal — is to be regarded and treated as a regenerate 
child of God, until the contrary is made to appear. 1 

1 Principal Cunningham, in his essay on " Zwingli and the Doc- 
trine of the Sacraments," contends that the definition of "baptism" 
in the Shorter Catechism " applies fully and in all its extent only to 
those who are possessed of the necessary qualifications or prepara- 
tion for baptism, and who are able to ascertain thisP He further 
declares that " the sacraments were instituted and intended for be- 
lievers, and produce their appropriate beneficial effects only through 
the faith which must have previously existed, and which is expressed 
and exercised in the act of partaking in them." In order to har- 
monize these statements with the doctrine and practice of the Re- 
formers and with the Standards of the Presbyterian Church, he 



216 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

We repudiate the opposite doctrine that all children, 
whether baptized or not, are to be regarded and treated 
as unregenerate until they give what we may regard as 
satisfactory evidence of being born again. These two 
theories underlie and pervade two very different schemes 
of Christian education. According to the one, parents 
have a child of Satan, a fallen and unregenerate being, 
prone to all evil and incapable of all good, to restrain, 
to instruct, and to pray over, in the hope that it will 
one day be converted and made fit to join the Church. 1 

asserts that "the case of infant baptism is special and peculiar;" 
that it " really occupies a sort of subordinate and exceptional posi- 
tion." Wherein it is subordinate and exceptional he does not under- 
take to show, nor does he quote a word from the Presbyterian 
Standards or from any of the Reformed creeds to prove that the 
views he advocates are consistent with the doctrines of the Reform- 
ers. He makes it plain, however, that in his opinion baptism, as 
applied to infants, is not to be regarded as a seal, because in their 
case there is nothing whatever to seal. How such opinions could 
be held and openly advocated by a leader and a teacher in the Free 
Church of Scotland, and how far such advocacy accounts for the 
prevalence of low views of the baptism of infants in the Presbyterian 
churches of this country, are questions which cannot now be dis- 
cussed. It is sufficient for our present purpose to set over against 
such opinions the explicit and strong statement of our Standards 
that " Baptism is the sign and seal of our regeneration and engraft- 
ing into Christ, and that even to infants." 

As an exposition of this confessional statement, we quote the fol- 
lowing sentence from Dr. Hodge : " The status of baptized children 
is not a vague or uncertain one, according to the doctrine of the Re- 
formed churches. They are members of the Church ; they are pro- 
fessing Christians ; they belong presumptively to the number of the 
elect. These propositions are true of them in the same sense in which 
they are true of adult professing Christians " (Princeton Review, 
1858, p. 389). 

1 Principal Cunningham, carrying out his views as to the sub- 
ordinate and exceptional character of the baptism of infants, insists 
that " every child, whether baptized or not, should be treated and 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS. 217 

According to the other scheme, the child is a fellow- 
member with its parents in the Church of Christ, a 
participant with them in the covenant of grace, a joint 
heir with them to the same covenant promises, a child 
of God whom He has committed to them to be nursed 
for Him. The reflex influence of the aim pursued will 
determine the whole educational process, and temper 
the whole atmosphere of the Christian home. Dr. Bush- 
nell, in his admirable book on " Christian Nurture," 
does not put the case a whit too strongly when he says : 
" It is the very character and mark of all unchristian 
education to train up a child for future conversion." 
And he is no less correct when he adds, " The true idea 
of Christian education is that a child is to grow up a 
Christian, and never to know himself as being other- 
wise." These opposite aims will not only control the 

dealt with in all respects as if they were unregenerate and still 
needed to be born again of the Word of God through the belief of the 
truth " ( Reformers and Theology of the Reformation, p. 291). And 
yet, notwithstanding the intimation in the words we have italicized, 
that there is no other way to be born again except through the be- 
lief of the truth, he insists in the same passage that " believers are 
warranted to improve the baptism of their children in the way of 
confirming their faith in the salvation of those of them who die in 
infancy." How can these two positions be reconciled ? Does death 
change the moral character and relations of its subjects, and make 
credible in regard to them that which was incredible before ? Can 
even an infant enter heaven without being born again ? Does bap- 
tism really add anything to the grounds of our faith in regard to the 
salvation of infants? If a child dies before its believing parents 
have an opportunity to have it baptized, must they have any less 
faith in its salvation than if it had been baptized ? 

To all which questions we answer, No. And for the same reason 
we utterly reject the dogma that the children of the covenant are to 
be judged and treated as unregenerate, unless, happily for them, 
death comes into the higher court of the believer's heart to plead 
against his head for a reversal of the cruel judgment. 



218 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

hopes of parents, and the instructions through which 
they seek to be realized, but they will make themselves 
felt with peculiar power in our treatment of children's 
faults. It must make a vast difference in our discipline 
whether we regard their shortcomings and misdoings as 
the lingering remains of sin in a young Christian, or as 
the living seeds of all evil in one who is still in the 
gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity. The as- 
sumption that they are already within the covenant, 
regenerate and holy, that grace is struggling in them for 
mastery over sin, will give a Divine tenderness to our 
rebukes. It will make us pray with them in the as- 
surance that they are partakers with us of the same 
grace, even as we share with them in the same passions 
and infirmities. It will bring -q S together to Christ in 
the faith of the Syrophcenician woman, saying, " Lord, 
have mercy upon us." Our sympathy will be to the 
child the sign and seal of Divine mercy, and our kiss of 
reconciliation the sacrament of God's loving forgiveness. 
But if we assume that the faults we would correct are 
the evidences of their unregenerate state ; if we con- 
stantly tell them that they are wicked, and drill into 
their tender souls the unevangelical falsehood that " God 
does not love naughty children ; " if we warn them con- 
tinually that they are in great danger of growing up 
reprobates and are in perishing need of a new heart, — 
such religious training will discourage and harden their 
sensitive nature more effectually than the indiscrimi- 
nate use of the rod. Even under the kindest personal 
treatment, multitudes of the children of the covenant 
are placed by the inexorable logic of the popular creed 
in the most anomalous and hopeless condition. They 
are taught to believe that the mark of the Lord Jesus 
is upon them, but that they are still excluded from His 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS. 219 

fold. They are bound by all the obligations of religion ; 
but they are warned not to claim its privileges until they 
have undergone a change of whose nature they can form 
no clear conception, for which they can discover no ne- 
cessity in their present simple and childlike religious 
experience, and the symptoms of which they are taught 
not to expect until that ill-defined period shall come 
when they will be " old enough to join the church." 

The telling of experiences, the fixing of the time, the 
discovery of the causes, and the description of the pro- 
cess of conversion, have become, to a large extent, 
synonymous in the mind of the Church with the tests 
of piety and the evidences of Christian character ; while 
the value or even the possibility of a true Christian 
experience running back into springs that are hidden 
and Divine, gradually developed, like a grain of mustard- 
seed, under the steady influence of Christian culture, 
and eluding by its very depth and pervading power all 
attempts to fix its times and seasons or describe the 
successive stages of its growth, is ignored, undervalued, 
and even condemned as unevangelical. Our children 
are afraid to claim their birthright privileges, because 
they have no experiences to tell, and can give no ac- 
count of their conversion. Instead of being taught 
that they already belong to the Church, and that if they 
love the Saviour it is their privilege to come to His 
table as soon as they understand the meaning of the 
ordinance, they hear the changes rung about being con- 
verted and joining the Church ; and getting their ideas 
of conversion from what they hear of the experience of 
adults brought into the Church from the world, they 
sadly number themselves with Christ's enemies, even 
while their hearts ache to be recognized among His 
friends. 



220 THE MINISTRY AND SACRAMENTS. 

It is time to take down the bars with which the 
tables have been fenced to the exclusion of children, and 
to substitute for them the plain and wise instructions 
of our Presbyterian Standards : — 

" Children born within the pale of the visible Church, and 
dedicated to God in baptism, are under the inspection and 
government of the Church, and are to be taught to read and 
repeat the Catechism, the Apostles' Creed, and the Lord's 
Prayer. And when they come to years of discretion, if they 
be free from scandal, appear sober and steady, and to have 
sufficient knowledge to discern the Lord's body, they ought 
to be informed that it is their privilege and duty to come 
to the Lord's Table. " x 

There is certainly a wide departure from the spirit 
and the letter of these instructions. For proof of this 
we need look no farther than the forms for a public 
profession of faith, which in their freedom from a pre- 
scribed liturgy our ministers invent for themselves. 
So far as our observation goes, these forms, with few 
exceptions, ignore the church membership of the chil- 
dren of believers, and assume that they all grow up to 
years of discretion unbelieving and unregenerate. One 
of these forms, which has been in use in a prominent 
Presbyterian Church for fifty years, may serve as a 
sample. It makes no distinction whatever between the 
children of the Church and the children of the world. 
It assumes that admission to membership, and coming 
for the first time to the communion, are contempora- 
neous and identical. It demands the same " confession 
and covenant from all who are thus ' added on profes- 
sion,' " and among other things it requires them all to 
adopt the following declaration : " In this public man- 
ner you do humbly confess and bewail the original and 
1 Directory for Worship, chap. ix. sect, 1. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS. 221 

total depravity of your nature, the past enmity of your 
heart against God, the unbelief which has led you to 
reject a Saviour, and the manifold transgressions of your 
life : all which sins you do condemn, and in your pur- 
pose renounce." Now, without stopping to inquire 
whether the acceptance of the doctrine of original and 
total depravity is essential to salvation, and therefore a 
term of communion in the Church of Christ, it is suffi- 
cient for our purpose to observe that confessions like 
this, as applied to children born within the pale of the 
visible Church, and trained in the nurture of the Lord, 
are without warrant of Scripture and contrary to experi- 
ence. I have received scores of such children to the 
Lord's table, — many of them at an early age. There 
w T as not one of them, so far as I can now remember, 
who was conscious of having ever rejected the Saviour 
or of cherishing enmity against God. While they all 
confessed and bewailed their sins, most, if not all of 
them, declared that they always believed in and loved 
the Saviour, and had never ceased from their earliest 
recollection to pray for His forgiving and sanctifying 
grace. My experience and observation in this matter 
cannot be peculiar. Surely it is not right to put such 
a confession between the Lord's table and the tender 
souls of children whom Christ has taken into His arms 
and blessed, and concerning whom He has said, " Of 
such is the kingdom of heaven." How can a child who 
has always, so far as memory goes, believed in and 
loved the Lord Jesus Christ, publicly confess, bewail, 
and renounce "enmity against God and the unbelief 
that rejects a Saviour," without contradicting his in- 
most consciousness and denying the grace of God which 
is in him ? If there is only one such child in the 
Church, is it right either to keep that child away from 



222 THE MINISTEY AND SACKAMENTS. 

the Lord's table, or to bring it there with a confession 
on the lips to which there is no response in the heart ? 
But such forms of admission are not only an offence 
against the little ones who believe in Christ, they are 
a practical repudiation of what we profess to believe 
concerning the household covenant, the efficacy of the 
ordinance, and the sovereignty of G-od. They are mani- 
festly based upon the assumption that original depravity 
is never counteracted by Divine grace, in the case of 
those who live, till they come to years of discretion ; 
that none of the children of the Church are born again 
in infancy, except they die in infancy, and that their 
baptism does not in any case really signify and seal 
their actual engrafting into Christ. These assumptions 
seem to me to be monstrous. They are far more in- 
consistent with the doctrines of grace and with the 
sovereignty of God than any theory of baptismal 
regeneration. 



APPENDIX. 



LECTUEE I. 



The Salvation of Infants. 

Dr. Hodge's argument on this subject is as follows : 
" All who die in infancy are saved. This is inferred from 
what the Bible teaches of the analogy between Adam and 
Christ. 'As by the offence of one, judgment came upon 
all men to condemnation, even so, by the righteousness of 
one, the free gift came upon all men to justification of life. 
For as by one man's disobedience many (ol ttoXKol = iravr^) 
were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many 
(ol -n-oXXot = iravTzs) be made righteous' (Rom. v. 18, 19). 
We have no right to put any limit on these general terms, 
except what the Bible itself places upon them. The Scrip- 
tures nowhere exclude any class of infants, baptized or un- 
baptized, born in Christian or in heathen lands, of believing 
or unbelieving parents, from the benefits of the redemption 
of Christ. All the descendants of Adam except Christ are 
under condemnation; all the descendants of Adam, except 
those of whom it is expressly revealed that they cannot in- 
herit the kingdom of God, are saved. This appears to be 
the clear meaning of the Apostle, and therefore he does not 
hesitate to say 'that where sin abounded, grace has much 
more abounded ; ' that the benefits of redemption far exceed 
the evils of the fall ; that the number of the saved far ex- 
ceeds the number of the lost. Not only does the compari- 
son which the Apostle makes between Adam and Christ 



224 APPENDIX. 

lead to the conclusion that, as all are condemned for the 
sin of one, so all are saved by the righteousness of the 
other, those only excepted whom the Scriptures except, 
but the principle assumed throughout the whole discussion 
teaches the same doctrine. That principle is that it is more 
congenial to the nature of God to bless than to curse, to save 
than to destroy. If the race fell in Adam, much more shall 
it be restored in Christ. If death reigned by one, much 
more shall life reign by one. This ' much more ' is repeated 
over and over. The Bible everywhere teaches that God 
delights not in the death of the wicked; that judgment is 
His strange work. It is, therefore, contrary not only to the 
argument of the Apostle, but to the whole spirit of the pas- 
sage (Rom. v. 12-21), to exclude infants from the 'all' who 
are made alive in Christ. The conduct and language of our 
Lord in reference to children are not to be regarded as 
matters of sentiment or simply expressions of kind feeling. 
He evidently looked upon them as the lambs of the flock, 
for which, as the Good Shepherd, He laid down His life, and 
of whom He said, they shall never perish, and none could 
pluck them out of His hands. Of such, He tells us, is the 
kingdom of heaven, as though heaven was, in a great 
measure, composed of the souls of redeemed infants. It is 
therefore the general belief of Protestants, contrary to the 
doctrine of Eomanists and Romanizers, that all who die in 
infancy are saved." 1 

The argument for the salvation of all dying infants is still 
more broadly stated in the following extracts from a book 
entitled "God and Little Children," by Dr. Henry Van 
Dyke, pastor of the Brick Church, New York : 2 — 

" It has been audaciously asserted and commonly believed 
that the doctrine of the perdition of infants originated with 
those theologians who are called Calvin ists, and that the 
Presbyterian Church is peculiarly responsible for it. Never 

1 Hodge's Theology, ii. 26. 

2 Published by A. D. F. Kandolph & Co. 



LECTURE I. 225 

was there a more ignorant assertion, never an assumption 
more at variance with the facts. 

" It has been piously claimed, on the other hand, that the 
Calvinistic theology has never recognized this doctrine, and 
that the Presbyterian Church has kept itself entirely free 
from the shadow of it. Never was there a claim made with 
more amiable intentions or with less substantial proofs. 

" The simple truth is, that the responsibility for this doc- 
trine rests, not upon any one branch of the Church, but 
upon theologians at large, from Saint Augustine down to the 
end of the seventeenth century. Here and there you will 
find men who were bold enough to deny and disavow it. 
But everywhere you will find men who not only accepted, 
but taught it. That is the amazing fact. You will not 
discover those dreadful words, ' Hell is paved with infants' 
skulls,' in the works of any ancient writer. It is merely a 
waste of time to try to run that gray-headed falsehood to 
earth. But you will have no trouble in finding theories 
and statements which imply or declare that some infants 
pass through death unto perdition, in the writings of Boman 
Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians, down 
almost to the present century. . . . 

" 1. The doctrine of the perdition of infants is false, be- 
cause there is nothing in the Word of God to support it. 
Search the Scriptures from end to end, and you will not 
find a single word, a single syllable, which implies that 
children are to be sent into everlasting death. 

" 2. But this argument is only negative, and we must 
pass on at once to the second point, which is positive. The 
doctrine of the perdition of infants is false, because it is con- 
demned by natural justice. It is not to be assumed for a 
moment that our human sense of justice is perfect and in- 
fallible, or that we are acquainted with all the considera- 
tions which enter into the judgment of God. But there is, 
in spite of all ignorance and defect, a perception of equity 
in the human soul which corresponds to the attribute of 

15 



226 APPENDIX. 

righteousness in God. And this is what we affirm : the 
more highly this moral sense is educated, the more clearly 
and unequivocally does it reluctate against the notion that 
God will condemn the soul of one little child to everlasting 
death, either on account of the guilt of Adam's sin, or on 
account of the neglect of its parents to have it baptized. 
How could we believe such a morally insane doctrine as that 
the final outworking of God's justice will be to spare the 
original offender and damn his helpless children 1 For that, 
in plain language, is what it all amounts to. Adam is saved. 
The Church has given him a place among the saints. Ra- 
phael has painted him among the blessed who sit around 
the throne, in the great fresco of the Disputa della Trinita. 
Dante has described him as the first in that happy circle 
which surrounds the mystic Eose of Paradise. From these 
pictures of celestial bliss we are told to drop our eyes down- 
ward and contemplate the miseries of myriads of Adam's 
children who have been cast into eternal torment solely on 
account of his sin. The vision is a dream of madness. It 
is a nightmare monstrosity of error. Before I could believe 
in it I should have to annihilate my conscience and commit 
moral suicide. 

" 3. But there is a still stronger argument against the 
perdition of infants. It is directly contrary to the prin- 
ciples of udgment as they are revealed to us by Jesus 
Christ. Let us understand very clearly that Christ teaches 
that there is punishment in the future world, and that this 
punishment is so great that it passes the power of human 
thought to conceive it. But let us never forget that He 
teaches also that this punishment is just and righteous, and 
that not a single stroke of it will ever fall upon any who 
have not deserved it by their own sins and refused deliver- 
ance by their own impenitence. And it is for this reason 
that the loving and gracious Christ tells us of their perdi- 
tion, in order that we may know that we also must give 
account to God of the deeds done in the body. Now, if you 



LECTURE I. 227 

introduce another principle of judgment, — if you say that 
any soul may be lost for the sin of Adam, for not accepting 
an invitation which it could not understand, for not receiv- 
ing a baptism which was never offered, for not repenting 
and believing before repentance and faith were possible, — 
you absolutely cancel and obliterate the teachings of Christ, 
and leave the future world a moral chaos, dominated solely 
by a blind and brutal terror. If judgment means anything, 
it means that this is forever impossible. If the words of 
Christ mean anything, they mean that not one helpless, 
harmless child will ever be banished into the outer darkness 
by the just God. 

" 4. And this brings us to the fourth and last reason for 
rejecting the doctrine of infant perdition. It is false because 
it is contrary to the revelation of the love of God which is 
given unto us in Christ Jesus our Lord. There has been a 
time when men have refused to accept this revelation in 
its integrity because it would not fit into their theories. 
Coming to the text, ' God so loved the world,' they have 
cut it down to suit their logic, and said, ' This means the 
world of the elect.' But by the gracious Spirit of God the 
darkness of that time has been dispelled. We believe that 
Christ meant just what He said. We believe that God is 
love, and that His mighty heart broods over all the world 
with an infinite tenderness, willing to save and bless it. 
Everywhere that love is flowing, following, seeking, calling for 
its children. Into every soul that does not refuse it, it will 
come. In every life that does not reject it, it will accom- 
plish its Divine purpose. And sooner shall our hearts learn 
to forget and hate the children that have nestled beside 
them, sooner shall our hands be ready to cast them into the 
flames, than God's heart shall forget them, — than God's 
hand shall cast away one of the little souls that pass, help- 
less and harmless, out of the shadow of their brief mortal 
life into the light of His loving presence." 



228 APPENDIX. 

B. 

" The Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints." 

The Apostles' Creed is part of the Standards of the Pres- 
byterian Church, and is included among the elementary 
formulas which children born within the pale of the visible 
Church are to be taught to repeat as part of their prepara- 
tion for admission to the Lord's table. 1 The revived use 
of this most ancient creed in our Sunday schools and assem- 
blies for worship is to be hailed as a hopeful sign, pointing 
backward to the faith of our fathers, and forward to the 
ultimate unifying of Christendom. It has been affirmed 
that this Creed, so far from setting forth the Church as a 
visible society in one specific form, does not present it under 
the idea of an external society at all. The clause, "the 
communion of saints," is often printed without a pause fol- 
lowing it, as though it were not a separate article, but only 
a synonymous and explanatory phrase for " the Holy Cath- 
olic Church." We believe, with Dr. Schaff, that this is a 
mistake. 2 The clause in question was one of the later 
additions to the Creed, — not earlier than the fifth century. 
It surely could not have been intended as a mere repetition ; 
still less could it have been designed and accepted at that 
time as a denial of the existence of the visible Catholic 
Church. But regarded as a separate and additional article 
of faith, it recognizes the communion of saints as something 
more than any outward organization. 

Calvin says : " When in the Creed we profess to believe in 
the Church, reference is made not only to the visible Church, 
of which we are now treating, but also to all the elect of 
God, including in the number even those who have departed 
this life." 3 

1 See Directory for Worship, chap. ix. 

2 See Creeds of Christendom, vol. i. p. 22 ; vol. ii. p. 52. 
. 8 Institutes, book iv. chapters i. ii. 



LECTURE I. 229 

Canon Westcott says : " We believe there is a Holy Catholic 
Church, a communion of saints, or, in other words, a body of 
Christ, seen and unseen, by which the truth is on the one side 
presented outwardly before the world, and on the other brought 
home with concentrated power to the souls of believers." * 

As adherence to this creed is one of the marks by which 
we recognize the Eoman Catholic communion, in spite of 
its corruptions and the usurpations of the papacy, as a 
part of the visible Church of Christ, so this article, whether 
it is so intended or not, is a confession that every true 
believer is a saint of God and a member of the invisible 
Church. 

C. 

TJwu art Peter, and upon this rock I will huild My 
church. — Matt. xvi. 18. 

Of course this language is highly figurative, but that is 
no reason why it should be wrested from its context, and 
treated as a dark saying, covering a meaning entirely dif- 
ferent from that which lies on its surface. Many devices 
have been found to set aside that meaning. In the first 
place, it is arbitrarily assumed that the " church " here spoken 
of is not the same to which the offended brother is directed 
to take his case, 2 for that is evidently an outward and vis- 
ible organization ; nor is it the kingdom of heaven spoken 
of in the very next verse, the keys of which are given to 
Peter ; but the " church " spoken of in this particular sen- 
tence must be regarded as altogether spiritual and invisible. 
Then, secondly, it is affirmed that this spiritual and mystical 
temple cannot be built on Peter or any other man, because 
Christ Himself is expressly declared to be its one foundation : 
" other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which 
is Jesus Christ." And thirdly, these premises being as- 

1 Historic Faith, p. 115. 

2 If he neglect to hear them, tell it unto the Church. — Matt- 
xviii. 17. 



230 APPENDIX. 

sumed and read into the text, something more occult must 
be substituted for its obvious meaniug. An antithesis is im- 
posed upon it; "and" (koll) is made to signify "but" (Se). 
Christ said to Peter, "Thou art a rock, and [that is, as 
these interpreters would have it, but\ on this rock [mean- 
ing something else than Peter] I will build My church." 
Some say the " rock " is Christ Himself, and go so far as to 
affirm that when He uttered the words He made His meaning 
plain by pointing to Himself. This is the device of Augustine, 
to which even his great name cannot reconcile us. Others 
think the " rock " is the truth of Peter's confession, separated 
entirely from his personality and future agency. And this 
is defended by the supposed significance of the change in 
the termiuation of the original word from Petros to petra. 
" Thou art Petros, and on this petra I will build My 
church." The reason for this change is a mere matter of 
conjecture. Mr. Goulburn's explanation is the most plau- 
sible. " Houses are not built upon single stones ; they 
may, however, be built upon a rock, and the word for ' rock ' 
in Greek is the same as that for a stone, only with a femi- 
nine termination, petra for petros " (Holy Catholic Church, 
p. 30). Whether this be true or not, the mere change in 
the termination of the word is no reason for changing the 
obvious meaning of the passage. 

" It seems certain that the words themselves (hri ravrr] 
rrj 7T€Tpa), though occasioned by the confession, refer to 
Peter himself. The change of person, 'on this rock,' in- 
stead of 'upon thee, 1 is the natural result of the sudden 
transition from a direct to a metaphorical address, and is in 
exact accordance with our Lord's manner on other occasions. 
He said, not 'destroy Me,' or 'the temple of My body,' but 
'destroy this temple' (John ii. 19)." 

It is not necessary, nor indeed possible, to separate Peter 
from his belief and confession of the truth. It was not upon 
Peter as denying his Master, but upon him as confessing and 
1 Stanley's Sermons on the Apostolic Age, p. 113. 



LECTURE I. 231 

truly believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living 
God, that the Church in its New Testament form was to be 
built. Neither, again, can Peter be separated from the rest 
of the Apostles, whose representative and mouthpiece he 
was, answering a question addressed to them all, "Whom 
say ye that lam?" 1 And hence, while Christ says, " I will 
give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven : and what- 
soever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven," a 
little while after He repeats and applies the same words to 
all the Apostles : " Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall 
be bound in heaven" (Matt, xviii. 18). Our Confession of 
Faith applies the same words to all church officers (chap, 
xxx. 1, 2). 

The interpretation we have given is adopted by all mod- 
ern commentators of note. Take a specimen from Alford : 
"The name Petros, the termination being altered only to 
suit the masculine appellation, denotes the personal position 
of this Apostle in the building of the Church of Christ. He 
was the first of those foundation-stones (Rev. xxi. 14) on 
which the living temple of God was built ; this building 
itself beginning on the day of Pentecost by the laying of 
three thousand living stones in the very foundation. That 
this is the simple, only interpretation of our Lord's words, 
the whole usage of the New Testament shows ; in which not 
doctrines, nor confessions, but men, are uniformly the pillars 
and stones of the spiritual building (1 Pet. ii. 4-6 ; Gal. 
ii. 9 ; Eph. ii. 20). Nothing can be farther from any legiti- 
mate interpretation of this promise than the idea of a per- 

1 Peter is called the foundation of the Church only in the same 
sense as all the Apostles are called the foundation by the Apostle Paul 
(Eph. ii. 20) ; namely, as the first preachers of the true faith concerning 
Jesus as the Christ and Son of God ; and if the man who first pro- 
fessed that faith be honored by being called individually the 'Rock,' 
that only shows that the, faith, and not the man, is, after all, the true 
foundation. That which makes Simon a Petros, a rock-like man, fit 
to build on, is the real petra on which the ecclesia is to be built. — 
Bruce ; Training of the Twelve, p. 170. 



232 APPENDIX. 

petual primacy in the successors of Peter ; the very notion 
of a succession is precluded by the form of the comparison, 
which concerns the person, and him only, so far as it involves 
a direct promise." 



LECTUBE V. 
A. 

We make the following extracts from an article in the 
"Lutheran Eeview" for January, 1889, by Rev. Dr. I. B. 
Reimensnyder : " ' The Didache,' says Schaff, ' fills a gap 
between the apostolic age and the Church of the second 
century, and sheds new light upon questions of doctrine, 
worship, and discipline.' All the proofs would fix its chro- 
nology from 70 to 100 a. d. Hitchcock and Brown assign it 
to the period between 100 and 120 a. d., Farrar to 100 a. d., 
Lightfoot to 80-100 a. d., and Schaff fixes it at 90-100 a. d. 
It is earlier than Clement of Alexandria (200) ; earlier than 
the Shepherd of Hermas (100 to 150) ; and earlier than the 
epistle of Barnabas, — for all these quote from it j and it is 
older than Ignatius, for the ecclesiastical order he describes 
has not yet arisen. Its place in order of time is, then, 
immediately after Clement of Rome and Poly carp. It thus 
becomes one of the most authoritative of the patristic 
writings, giving us a reflection of the state of affairs imme- 
diately subsequent to the era of the Apostles. . . . 

" Bishops and deacons are referred to in the Didache as 
the only regular, permanent officers of the church. With 
reference to these the testimony is clear and precise. Chap. 
xv. says of bishops and deacons : ' Appoint, therefore, for 
yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men 
meek, and not lovers of money, and truthful and proved. 
Despise them not, therefore, for they are your honored 
ones.' We observe here, — 

" 1. That only two ecclesiastical orders are in existence. 



LECTURE V. 233 

The presbyter is not mentioned, becanse he is, according to 
New Testament usage, synonymous with the bishop, and 
therefore included under that title. Nothing is known of 
three orders, the episcopate, the presbyterate, and the 
diaconate, — a distinction which arose in a later age. 

"2. The use of the word x^poTovew, 'appoint,' 'there- 
fore, for yourselves/ shows that the custom still prevailed 
of a choice by the congregation. 

" 3. There is nothing said of ordination, least of all of 
episcopal ordination, as essential to legitimate introduction 
to the ministry. 

" Certainly we discover nothing hierarchical here, no indi- 
cations of that rigid episcopal order which subsequently 
became prevalent. Professor Eiddle says of the Didache in 
this respect : ' The church polity indicated in the " Teach- 
ing" is less developed than that of the genuine Ignatian 
epistles . . . ; this theory must admit that there existed for 
a long time great variety of church polity and worship.' 
Bishop Lightfoot says : ' When our author wrote, " bishop " 
still remained a synonym of " presbyter," arid the episcopal 
office, properly so called, had not been constituted in the 
district in which he lived.' * 

" The ecclesiastical order, then, disclosed in the ' Teaching' 
is that indicated in the New Testament. The extraordinary 
offices and spiritual powers of that time linger in some 
shadowy sense in the itinerant and temporary preachers, 
variously called apostles, prophets, and teachers. The reg- 
ular ecclesiastical officers are but bishops, or presbyters, and 
deacons, and these are appointed by the people, instead of 
being ordained by a bishop. There is no episcopate as a 
higher clerical order. The ' Teaching ' thus differs dis- 
tinctly from the Ignatian writings, Irenseus, etc., which 
show a sacerdotal church order existing in the second cen- 
tury. And it accordingly becomes a powerful additional 
and corroborative proof as to the church government be- 
queathed by the Apostles. 

1 Expositor, Jan. 5, 1885. 



234 APPENDIX. 

" The facts as to the so-called apostolic episcopate are then 
these : The New Testament, and especially the Pastoral 
Epistles, hint nothing of the kind, regarding the bishop and 
presbyter absolutely one and the same. All the earliest 
patristic writings, Clement, Poly carp, the Didache, and the 
Shepherd of Hermas — those of the immediate sub-apostolic 
age, to about 120 a. d. — show positively by their assertions 
and references that no distinct episcopal order as yet ex- 
isted. It is only subsequent to this period that, with 
Irenaeus and Ignatius, we begin to find the changed order. 
The conclusion is irrefragable that the historic episcopate 
originated later than the Apostles, and accordingly lacks 
scriptural and inspired authority. It cannot be insisted on, 
then, as obligatory and essential, nor can the want of it ille- 
gitimatize any ministry, or unchurch any body of Christians. 
As Dean Alford (Episcopalian), the great Greek scholar, 
writes, ' men by legitimate appointment are set to minister 
in the churches of Christ, not by successive delegation from 
the Apostles, — of which fiction I find in the New Testament 
no trace, — but by their mission from Christ, the Bestower 
of the Spirit for their office, when orderly and legitimately 
conferred on them by the various churches? 

" With these incontrovertibly established facts admitted 
with practical unanimity by scholars of every church, in- 
cluding the most eminent Episcopalians, we may say, with 
the historian Kurtz, that it is ' little less than absurd ' to 
ask Christendom to accept the episcopate as a succession of 
the apostolate necessary to the true Church." 1 

Mr. Gore, in his recent book on the "Church and the 
Ministry," wrestles hard to bring the facts recorded in 
the Didache, and in the epistles of Clement and Polycarp, 
into line with his theory of the apostolic succession and 
the exclusive right of ordination in diocesan bishops. He 
insists that the Didache " belongs at the latest to the first 
century." He admits that the only local officers in the 
1 Greek Testament, i. 904. 



LECTUKE V. 235 

churches, as described in that document and in the epistles 
of Clement and Poly carp, are bishops and deacons, and that 
these bishops were nothing more than presbyters. But he 
contends that over these were prophets and teachers and 
apostles, in the sense of evangelists, — " men belonging to 
a ministry as yet unlocalized," " an itinerant episcopacy," 
"an unlocalized prophetic ministry." And he tells us that 
" we have evidence that cannot be resisted that the transi- 
tion " from this " ambulatory ministry " of prophets, teach- 
ers, and evangelists to the localized episcopate was effected 
by no less an authority than that of the Apostles (page 285). 
Now note that he has already admitted that there were 
already in the churches a local body of bishops (iirio~K07roL) 
in the person of the presbyters ; but these did not consti- 
tute a localized diocesan episcopacy distinct from and supe- 
rior to the presbyterate. Let it be remembered also that 
at the time the Didache was written, and before there was 
any such localized episcopacy as he contends for, all the 
Apostles except John were dead, and, therefore, according 
to his own admissions, the " transition " could have been 
accomplished by the authority, not of the Apostles, but only 
of one Apostle. But what is the "evidence such as cannot 
be resisted" that the change from presbyter episcopacy to 
diocesan episcopacy was effected by apostolic authority 1 ? 
It is nothing more than a " legend handed down and pre- 
served about John the Apostle," as recorded by Clement of 
Alexandria, " that after his return from Patmos he used to 
go away when he was summoned to the neighboring dis- 
tricts, in some places to establish bishops, in others to 
organize whole churches, in others to ordain to the clergy 
some one of those indicated by the Spirit " (page 286). And 
this legend, recorded a hundred years after the death of the 
Apostle, is " the evidence that cannot be resisted " ! On this 
slender thread is suspended the enormous claim of "the 
historic episcopate," and the denial that any of the Prot- 
estant denominations but the Episcopal have any ordained 



236 APPENDIX. 

ministry or any valid sacraments! "Here, then," exclaims 
Mr. Gore, as though his case were proved beyond contra- 
diction, " we have Saint John organizing episcopacy in the 
district about Ephesus." Now, admitting all that is affirmed 
in this legend as " very history," how does it prove that the 
transition from the " itinerant episcopacy " to a " localized 
episcopacy " was effected by no less an authority than that 
of the Apostles ? John was only one of them. The dis- 
trict about Ephesus was a very small part of the territory 
of the church. Certainly there was no room there for many 
diocesan bishops. And after all, may it not be that the 
bishops he " established in some places " were just the same 
old presbyter bishops whom Paul recognized in Ephesus, and 
who are spoken of in the Didache and in the epistles of 
Clement and Polycarp as being, with the deacons, the only 
permanent and localized officers of the Church 1 The at- 
tempt to prove that diocesan episcopacy was established by 
Christ or His Apostles is a miserable failure. 



LECTUEE YI. 



We are thoroughly Protestant in our rejection of transub- 
stantiation as denned by the Council of Trent, whether that 
doctrine was held by the Fathers or not. At the same time, 
we are not in sympathy with some of the Protestant argu- 
ments against it. Nothing is gained by our appeal to the 
Word of God from human authority embodied in ecclesiasti- 
cal decrees, if in the contest between rival interpretations of 
Scripture we invoke that same authority expressed by indi- 
viduals or by the masses of mankind. If we must submit to 
either, we prefer an organized court to a town-meeting or 
to the opinion of any number of individuals. Our Confes- 



LECTURE VI. 237 

sion of Faith says " the doctrine which maintains a change 
in the substance of the bread and wine into the substance of 
Christ's body and blood is repugnant, not to Scripture alone, 
but even to reason and common-sense.'''' 

What is the force of " even " in this statement % Does it 
indicate an authority above that of Scripture] If so, the 
statement repudiates the fundamental principle of Protes- 
tantism. What do we mean by "reason and common- 
sense " 1 If we mean simply our own perceptions and the 
inferences we draw from them, the statement is only a 
roundabout declaration that we as individuals reject the 
doctrine in question. If we mean the reason and com- 
mon-sense of mankind in general, the argument is mani- 
festly based on false premises, in view of the fact that the 
majority of nominal Christians, including multitudes of the 
ablest and purest of mankind, sincerely believe in transub- 
stantiation. As to the vague proverb that a thing may be 
above reason and common-sense without being contrary to 
them, our opponents are as much entitled as we, under the 
storm and stress of the argument, to run into this refuge ; 
for if a thing is above the apprehension of our senses and the 
grasp of our reason, how can we know whether it is contrary 
to them or not 1 It may, indeed, be assumed as a truism 
that the Word of God does not and cannot require us to be- 
lieve anything which the constitution of our nature as God 
has given it to us forces us to reject as false or impossible. 
But " the constitution of our nature " is but another phrase 
for "reason and common-sense," and is equally indefinite. It 
may also be assumed that whatever God has revealed in His 
Word will be found ultimately to be in perfect harmony with 
all He has established in His works. But it does not follow 
from this that our present apprehensions, whether of sense 
or of reason, are the true measure of that final agreement. 
It is of the very essence of faith in the supernatural to admit 
that there are " more things in heaven and in earth than 
are dreamed of in our philosophy." The facts discoverable 



238 APPENDIX. 

by our senses and the laws which are the generalized and 
scientific statement of these facts must be regarded as 
supreme in their own sphere ; but when, in the attempt to 
apply natural law to the spiritual world or to the explana- 
tion of revealed mysteries, we go a step beyond the Word of 
God, we get beyond our depth, and are surrounded with the 
fogs of " philosophy and vain deceit." What do we know 
about substance in its last analysis 1 " Substance is nothing 
but the supposed but unknown support of those qualities 
which we find existing, which we imagine cannot subsist 
without something to support them." 1 

Admitting that there are only two substances in the uni- 
verse, matter and mind, and that these two are essentially 
and forever distinct, what do we know about the relations 
they may sustain to each other in a sphere beyond our ob- 
servation, and how far in these unknown relations they may 
be assimilated to each other 1 What do we know about the 
capabilities of a celestial and spiritual body 1 The phrase is 
self-contradictory, "and repugnant to reason and common- 
sense." Yet "there is a natural body and there is a spiritual 
body " (1 Cor. xv. 44). What do we know about the capa- 
bilities of a body begotten by the Holy Ghost and filled with 
all the fulness of God % Even before He rose from the dead 
and was glorified, the body of Christ was exempted from the 
ordinary restrictions of flesh and blood. When, after His 
resurrection, He stood suddenly in the midst of the disciples, 
" the doors being shut " (John xxi. 26), and permitted 
Thomas to touch the wounds in His hands and side, could 
they or can we tell how He came in 1 To insist, with some 
commentators, that the doors must have opened of them- 
selves, or that a keeper was appointed to open them to 
friends, is a presumptuous addition to the record which ex- 
plains away its chief point. The closed door is the definite 
and emphasized condition under which Christ came into 
the upper chamber, "rcov 6vpwv KeKXetcr/xivoiv points to a 
1 Locke, quoted in Worcester's Dictionary. 



LECTURE VI. 239 

miraculous appearance which did not require open doors, 
which took place while they were closed, — how, it does 
not and cannot appear. In any case, however, the atfaavros 
eyeVero in Luke xxiv. 31 is the correlative of this immediate 
appearance in the closed place ; and the constitution of His 
body, changed, brought nearer to the glorified state, although 
not immaterial, is the condition for such a liberation of the 
Eisen One from the limitations of space which apply to ordi- 
nary corporeity." 1 It was not His personal appearance, but 
the supernatural and incomprehensible mode of His coming- 
in that terrified the disciples, just as they had been alarmed 
before when they saw Him walking on the waters. Under- 
standing no better than we do how a human body could pass 
through a closed door, they hastily concluded that He was 
only a spirit ; but Christ, knowing their thoughts, showed 
them His hands and His feet. We believe this story because 
"it is written." And for the same reason, if the Scriptures 
declared that the bread and wine of the communion are 
changed into the flesh and blood of Christ, we should believe 
that also, however repugnant it might be to " reason and 
common-sense." We therefore greatly prefer the statement 
of the Thirty-nine Articles on this subject to that of our 
Confession. 

B. 

The Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper is stated 
with admirable clearness in the following extract: — 

" The Lutherans hold all that Calvin does, and something 
more ; but that concerns almost entirely what unbelievers 
receive in the sacrament. In order to avoid the danger that 
seemed to them to lie in Zwingle's view, of making the 
blessing of the sacraments depend on our changing moods, 
they thought it necessary to maintain that the blessing was 
there, whether men believed it or not, and is really given 
even to unbelievers. Hence, since they have no faith, the 
1 Meyer on John xx. 26. 



240 APPENDIX. 

consequence followed that Christ and His benefits must be 
given or received in or with the outward elements ; and thus 
the Lutheran doctrine in appearance approximates to the 
Roman Catholic one, though it is really very different in 
nature and spirit, and much more truly akin to that of 
Calvin. Lutherans agree with Calvinists as to what believers 
receive in and through the sacraments ; their chief if not 
only difference is as to what unbelievers receive in them, and 
that surely cannot be an essential part of the Christian doc- 
trine on the subject. 7 ' 1 

While we greatly admire the breadth of his views and the 
catholicity of his spirit, we cannot agree with Dr. Candlish 
in passing over the difference between the Lutheran and 
Reformed doctrine so lightly. The doctrine that unbelievers 
receive the same thing with believers in the Lord's Supper 
cannot stand alone. It rests upon the assumption that the 
outward elements are so connected with the body and blood 
of Christ which they represent, that the reception of the one 
necessarily involves the reception of the other, whether the 
recipient have faith or not. When the Lutheran comes to 
explain the mode of this connection, it is not easy to under- 
stand him. When the Formula of Concord declares that 
the real presence of Christ's body and blood in, with, and 
under the bread and wine is not an impanation or local in- 
clusion, not a mixture of the two substances, nor a per- 
manent conjunction between them, but only a sacramental 
union which is confined to the celebration of the Supper, we 
can see no difference between these statements and the Re- 
formed doctrine of Christ's real presence. But the Lutheran 
symbols and theologians go farther than this, and teach : 
(1) The local and material ubiquity of Christ's body, involv- 
ing the communication of His Divine attributes to His human 
nature ; and (2) the efficacy of the sacraments aside from the 
work of the Holy Spirit and the exercise of faith by the 
communicant. On this point the Lutheran is careful to 
1 Dr. Candlish on the Sacraments, p. 40. 



LECTUEE VI. 241 

avoid the Romish doctrine that a Divine efficacy is im- 
parted to the elements in the Supper by priestly consecration, 
and that the consecrated elements produce the same effect in 
all who oppose no obstacle to their Divine virtue. Accord- 
ing to his view, there is the same Divine power imparted by 
God directly to all the means of grace, to the Word as well 
as to the sacraments. The efficacy of the sacrament is due 
to this inherent virtue, independent both of the influences of 
the Holy Spirit and the faith of the communicant. Faith, 
indeed, is the necessary condition for the improvement and 
beneficial effect of what is received ; but it has nothing to do 
with the reception of all that is signified by the sacrament. 
Because it rests upon and involves these two dogmas, the 
ubiquity of Christ's body and the inherent efficacy of the 
sacrament, the Reformed Confessions and theologians unani- 
mously reject the doctrine that unbelievers receive the same 
thing as believers in the Lord's Supper. 

C. 

It is not easy to ascertain what were Zwingle's views, and 
to determine precisely what doctrine of the Lord's Supper 
may fairly bear his name. He was a popular leader, not a 
profound theologian. He contributed very little to formu- 
late the theology of the Reformation. His fame rests largely 
on his personal heroism and the tragic interest which gathers 
about his death in battle. His peculiar views of the Lord's 
Supper were not embodied in any of the Reformed Confes- 
sions, 1 and are not recognized to-day in the Standards of any 
Christian denomination known as evangelical, with the ex- 
ception of the Reformed Episcopal Church. 2 How far his 

1 The doctrine that the Lord's Supper is a sign or symbol, and noth- 
ing more, became the characteristic dogma of the Socinian party. — 
Bannerman : Church of Christ, ii. 137. 

2 "We feed on Christ only through His Word, and only by faith 
and prayer ; and we feed on Him whether at our private devotions, or 
in our meditations, or on any occasion of public worship, or in the 

16 



242 APPENDIX. 

earlier teaching aoout the sacraments was simply the recoil 
and protest of his ardent mind against the errors of Roman- 
ism, and therefore not intended to be a full exposition of 
doctrine on the subject; and how far his earlier teaching was 
modified by the influence of the other Reformers or by his 
own more mature reflections, we cannot undertake to deter- 
mine. The learned witnesses on these points contradict each 
other, and are not always consistent with themselves. Bishop 
Browne affirms that Zwingle was not satisfied to reject a ma- 
terial presence of Christ in the Supper, but he denied a pres- 
ence of any sort. With him the bread and wine were empty 
signs. Feeding on Christ was a figure for believing on Him. 
The communion was but a ceremony to remind us of Him. 

" He probably may have modified these statements 
afterwards, but they thoroughly belonged to his sys- 
tem." 1 Dr. Bannerman says : " There is good reason to 
doubt whether Zwingle ever meant to deny that the 
Lord's Supper is a seal as well as a sign of spiritual 
grace." 2 Dr. Cunningham defends the Reformer against 
"the misstatements of Mosheim and Milner," which he 
condemns as " second-hand opinions " and " remarkable 
specimens of the humanum est errare" And yet when he 
comes to give positive testimony in Zwingle's favor, he seems 
virtually to admit what Mosheim and Milner had affirmed; 
for the most he can say is that, " in his last work, ' Expo- 
sitio Fidei,' Zwingle gave some indications, though perhaps 
not very explicit, of regarding the sacraments as not only 
signs, but also seals ; as signifying and confirming something 
then done by God through the Spirit, as well as something 
done by the believer through faith." 3 Dr. Hodge says : 

memorial symbolism of the Supper" (Ref. Epis. Articles of Religion ; 
Schaff's Creeds, iii. 823). " By the word 'sacrament' this church is 
to be understood as meaning only a symbol or sign Divinely appointed " 
(Ibid.). 

1 Browne on the Thirty-nine Articles, p. 701. 

2 Church of Christ, ii. 136. 

3 Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation, p. 228. 



LECTURE VII. 243 

" According to the doctrine of Zwingle, the sacraments are 
not properly means of grace. . . . They were not ordained 
to signify, seal, and apply to believers the benefits of Christ's 
redemption. . . . They were to Him no more means of 
grace than the rainbow or the heap of stones on the banks 
of the Jordan. By their significancy and by their associa- 
tion they might suggest truth and awaken feeling, but they 
were not channels of Divine communication/' 1 And yet 
Dr. Hodge afterwards says : ft It should be remembered that 
Calvin avowed his agreement with Zwingle and (Ecolam- 
padius on all questions relating to the sacraments." 2 

Of course these two statements can be reconciled only on 
the supposition that Zwingle before his death abandoned 
his earlier opinions, against which Calvin so earnestly con- 
tended ; for no one can think that Calvin modified in any 
important particular the views so grandly set forth in his 
Institutes. 



LECTUEE VII. 
A. 

The Necessity of the Sacraments. 

Those writers who hold to the Divine appointment of the 
sacraments, and believe that they are in any sense effectual 
means of grace and salvation, and yet insist that whatever is 
signified, sealed, and conveyed to the believer by their use 
may be obtained without their observance, are utterly incon- 
sistent with themselves. Their word is yea and nay ; they 
scatter with one hand what they have carefully gathered with 
the other. As an eminent but not singular example of this 
inconsistency we may cite Dr. Cunningham. He maintains 
that " the sacraments Christ has instituted are of imperative 

1 Theology, iii. 498. 2 Ibid., p. U7. 



244 APPENDIX. 

obligation, and that it is a duty incumbent upon men to ob- 
serve them when the means and opportunity of doing so are 
afforded them ; so that it is sinful to disregard them." * Now, 
to a mind unwarped by theological controversy, it would 
seem that any one who lives in open disregard of an " imper- 
ative obligation," in habitual neglect of an "incumbent duty," 
in a voluntary and "sinful" refusal to use what Christ has 
appointed as an effectual means of salvation, must be desti- 
tute of the simplest elements of Christian character, and that 
the hope of salvation which may be cherished under such 
conditions must be, to say the least of it, without any well- 
grounded assurance. And yet Dr. Cunningham goes on to 
insist that the observance of the sacrament, while it is neces- 
sary ex necessitate precepti, is "not necessary ex necessitate 
medii, or in such a sense that the mere fact of men not 
having actually observed them either produces or proves 
the non-possession of spiritual blessings, — either excludes 
men from heaven, or affords evidence that they will not in 
point of fact be admitted there." x As this is a fair state- 
ment of the views of those Calvinistic divines who incline to 
Zwinglian views of the sacraments, and think with Dr. Cun- 
ningham that " the effort to bring out something like a real 
influence exerted by Christ's human nature upon the souls 
of believers in connection with the Lord's Supper is perhaps 
the greatest blot in the history of Calvin's labors as a public 
instructor," 3 it may be well for us to analyze and catechise 
its meaning. The question before us has no reference to 
those who are either ignorant of the Lord's Supper or have 
no opportunity to partake of it. It refers only to those 
whose observance of the sacrament is admitted to be an 
"imperative obligation" and "an incumbent duty," and 
whose neglect of it is declared to be " sinful." What does 
the author mean by " the mere fact of men not having actu- 
ally observed" the sacraments? Is there any conceivable 

1 Reformers, and Theology of the Reformation, p. 235. 

2 Ibid., p. 236. 3 Ibid., p. 240. 



LECTUKE VII. 245 

observance which is not actual] And the same question 
may be asked in regard to the author's expression about 
being admitted to heaven in point of fact. We can conceive 
of no admission to heaven which is not a fact ; and to our 
mind the suggestion of any such qualification, whether in 
regard to the observance of the sacraments or to the enjoy- 
ment of the salvation they signify and seal, only darkens 
counsel by words without knowledge. We pass from this 
to a more serious question : Can any one live in the sinful 
neglect of an incumbent duty and an imperative obligation, 
without thereby giving explicit evidence as to the possession 
or non-possession of spiritual blessings 1 Even if we admit 
the Scholastic distinction between the necessity of precept 
and the necessity of means, does not the one bind us equally 
with the other, and present as complete a test of Christian 
character] Can any one have the evidence or enjoy the 
fruit of regeneration by the Spirit and faith in the Lord 
Jesus Christ without at the same time having respect to all 
God's commandments ; and upon what principle do we ex- 
clude from the application of this universal rule that com- 
mand which comes to us from the lips of Christ on the 
eve of the crucifixion] But there is yet another question, 
which goes still nearer to the core of this discussion. What 
ground is there for denying that the Lord's Supper is ne- 
cessary ex necessitate medii as well as ex necessitate precepti? 
Did not Christ institute it and make the obligation to ob- 
serve it universal and perpetual upon all who hear the 
Gospel? And is it a mere arbitrary appointment, without 
any gracious design or any vital connection with our salva- 
tion ] The whole contention on the part of those who would 
confine the necessity of the sacrament simply to the precept 
of Christ seems to us more Protestant than Christian, more 
rationalistic than scriptural. It is the falsehood of one ex- 
treme leaning backward from another. It grows out of a 
morbid fear lest the doctrine of the Lord's Supper should 
lead to what are opprobriously called " sacramentarian 



246 APPENDIX. 

views." It is inconsistent with the plain teaching of the 
Confession and Catechisms of the Presbyterian Church. 

As to the position that the Christian receives nothing in 
the Lord's Supper which he does not receive in the use of 
other means of grace, it may well be asked, Why, then, was 
this sacrament instituted 1 If as a means of grace it has no 
efficacy peculiar to itself, it is a superfluous form. If Christ 
does not fulfil in it some special promise, He holds out to us 
a mere empty sign. In answer to this it is usual to fall back 
upon the necessity of the precept, and to say that it is not 
for us to question the wisdom of Christ's appointments ; He 
has commanded us to do this, and whether we receive any 
special benefit from it or not, it is our duty to obey. All 
this is true. But on what a low, hard level does it put the 
holy sacrament, and what a sapless and perfunctory service 
must its observance be to all who hold such views. If the 
obligation to keep this feast rests simply on the necessity of 
precept, it stands alone among all the Divine ordinances; it 
is an exception among the means of grace. All Christians 
admit that we obtain by prayer blessings that are secured 
in no other way, that we receive through the reading and 
hearing of the Word what comes to us through no other 
channel; and yet theologians insist, and make it a test of 
orthodoxy, that we are to expect nothing from the sacrament 
but what can be obtained without the use of it, — nothing, 
at least, beyond the satisfaction of knowing that we are doing 
what Christ has told us to do. The same men do not reason 
thus in regard to any other Divine institution. Paul does 
not reason thus in regard to the Lord's Supper. He does 
not rest the obligation for its observance upon the simple 
necessity of precept, when, applying to it language which is 
nowhere used in Scripture in regard to prayer, or hearing 
the Gospel, or to any other means of grace, he declares that 
the use of this consecrated bread and wine is the Koivwvla, or 
participation, of the body and blood of Christ. We agree, 
therefore, with John Owen that " herein is a peculiar partici- 



LECTURE VII. - 247 

pation of Christ, such as there is in no other ordinance what- 
ever;" 1 and with Bruce, that the sacrament is appointed 
" that we may get a better grip of Christ than we get in the 
simple Word, that we may have Him more fully in our 
souls, that He may make the better residence in us." 2 

B. 

Is the Lord's Supper a Converting Ordinance ? 

Protestants generally answer this question very emphati- 
cally in the negative. And the answer is unquestionably 
correct, provided the question be understood to refer to the 
distinctive design of the Lord's Supper, and if the word 
" conversion " is used in its restricted popular sense, to sig- 
nify the beginning of the Divine life in the soul. The sac- 
rament is intended primarily and chiefly for the comfort, 
the nourishment, and the confirmation of believers, for their 
growth in grace, and the enlargement of their personal in- 
terest in Christ. But in a too rigid and exclusive insistence 
upon this distinctive design we think many Protestant 
writers have overlooked the influences which belong to it in 
common with all the means of grace, and so have uncon- 
sciously limited the grace of God itself. (1) Strictly speak- 
ing, there is no such thing as a converting ordinance. The 
preaching of the Gospel never converted a soul. It is sim- 
ply the instrument by which the Holy Spirit brings men to 
Christ and to salvation. In this respect all the means of 
grace stand on a common level. 

(2) The Lord's Supper is in itself, and aside from any 
teaching which may accompany the administration of it, a 
graphic and powerful preaching of the Gospel. Have not 
many spectators of that solemn ceremony been convinced of 
sin and turned to Christ by this visible embodiment of the 
truth, and was it not to them a converting ordinance 1 We 

1 Owen's Works, viii. 560. 

2 Quoted in Candlish on the Sacraments. 



248 APPENDIX. 

admit and insist that no one ought to come to the Lord's 
table without faith and a full purpose of heart to lead a life 
of faith and holy obedience. But suppose some mistaken 
soul, through no contempt or carelessness, should come to 
the Lord's table, may not Christ, in the exercise of the same 
infinite mercy which instituted the Supper, make it the 
means of self-revelation and of conscious conversion to that 
soul 1 Or suppose some child of the covenant, without ever 
having been conscious of enmity or opposition to God, and 
therefore having no experience of conversion, and yet being 
free from scandal and having knowledge to discern the Lord's 
body, desires to acknowledge and confirm the obligation of 
its baptism by coming to the Lord's table, — must such a 
little one be kept back by the syllogism : Except ye be con- 
verted ye cannot see the kingdom of God : the Lord's Supper 
is not a converting ordinance ; therefore these little ones 
which believe in Him must wait till they are converted. 

(3) The truth is, that the word " conversion " in its pop- 
ular use in our churches has assumed a narrow, technical 
sense, for which there is no warrant in the Scriptures nor in 
our doctrinal Standards. In the Scripture it is not applied 
exclusively to the beginning of a Christian life, but to any 
turning of the soul from sin to God. A Christian may and 
must be converted, a hundred times, after the manner of 
Peter, to whom Christ said, " I have prayed for thee, that thy 
faith fail not; and when thou art converted, strengthen thy 
brethren." In this Scriptural sense the Lord's Supper is 
pre-eminently a converting ordinance. Its very design is to 
nourish and renew our Christian life, to turn us more and 
more from self and sin to Christ and to holiness. 

In our judgment it is a far greater injury to Christ and 
to the souls of men to prevent a true believer, however feeble 
and imperfect, from coming to the Lord's table, than by a 
mistaken judgment to admit one who has not true faith. It 
is better to have a millstone hanged about our neck and 
to be drowned in the depths of the sea than to put a stum- 



LECTUKE VII. 249 

bling-block in the way of Christ's little ones. The " fencing 
of the tables," as practised in many churches, is a human ad- 
dition to the Divine ordinances. It is doubtful whether it 
ever excluded a hypocrite ; it has certainly kept back many 
a weak and timid Christian. It is to be feared that many 
have come short of eternal life who, had they been received 
into the bosom of the Church and enjoyed its fostering and 
guardian care, might have been saved. It is a fearful thing 
to refuse to any sinner who sincerely desires to use them, 
any of the means of grace and salvation which Christ has 
appointed. 

C. 

The two Wine Theory. 

The theory that there are two kinds of wine spoken of in 
the New Testament, one fermented, and therefore intoxicat- 
ing, and the other unfermented and unintoxicating, and that 
Christ made at the marriage in Cana and used in the insti- 
tution of the Lord's Supper only the unfermented kind, is a 
mere figment of a zealous imagination. It has no basis in 
history, nor in classic literature, nor in Biblical exegesis. It 
rests entirely upon antecedent grounds. It assumes that 
"the known character of Jesus is a sufficient guarantee that 
He did not furnish a promiscuous gathering of men and women 
at Cana with an unlimited quantity of a liquid on which such 
of them as were disposed could get drunk." This is precisely 
the old Manichsean argument for dualism in creation. The 
character of a good God is a sufficient guarantee that He 
would not fill the world with things which men can so read- 
ily abuse to their own destruction; therefore the material 
universe is the work, not of God, but of the Devil. The ar- 
gument is just as valid in its broader application as when 
it is applied to wine. It can be applied to the interpretation 
of the New Testament only by doing open violence to the 
plain meaning of its words. Even an ordinary reader of the 



250 APPENDIX. 

English Bible, if free from prejudice, must see that what 
John the Baptist abstained from, and the Son of Man came 
drinking, so that they slanderously ,alled Him a wine-bibber, 
— i. e., a drunkard (Matt. xi. 19) what the desecrators of the 
Lord's Supper at Corinth abused till they were "drunken;" 
what Paul recommended Timothy to take a little of, and for- 
bade bishops to use in excess (1 Tim. hi. 3), — was not unfer- 
mented grape-juice, as harmless as water, but something that 
might be lawfully and beneficially used, but at the same 
time was liable to be abused. It was this drink, thus capa- 
ble of being both used and abused, that Christ chose to be 
the symbol of His blood. We know what " the cup " in the 
celebration of the Passover contained as certainly as we can 
know anything pertaining to the history of the past. We 
know that " the fruit of the vine " was a proverbial name 
for wine in common use. It is mere trifling and evasion to 
insist that because it is not called wine, we have no proof 
that it was wine which the Saviour blessed and gave to His 
disciples. 

But we are not left to the plain meaning of the Scripture 
on this question. The whole subject has been thoroughly 
and exhaustively discussed by men whose temperance in all 
things admits of no suspicion, and whose scholarship is as 
great as their reverence for the Word of God. Dr. John 
Maclean, in the " Princeton Review " of April and October, 
1841, and Dr. Lyman Atwater, in the same Review for Oc- 
tober, 1871, and January, 1872; Dr. Dunlop Moore, in his 
articles published in the " Presbyterian Review " for January, 
1881 and 1882 ; the Rev. Dr. Edward H. Jewett, in two ar- 
ticles published in the " Church Review " for April and July 
of 1885, — have demonstrated that the two wine theory is 
utterly without warrant in Scripture or in classic literature. 

The idea of abolishing the use of wine in the Lord's Sup- 
per, in order to remove temptation out of the way of the 
weak (even if we admit the exaggerated statements of the 
danger it involves, which we utterly deny), is contrary to 



LECTURE VII. 251 

God's uniform method in the discipline of His people. He 
does not remove temptation out of our way ; but surround- 
ing us on every hand with that which may be abused, He 
strengthens us to use it lawfully, that in our own character 
and experience w r e may inherit the blessedness of the man 
who endureth temptation. The ascetic maxim, "Touch not, 
taste not, handle not," which is so often quoted as a motto 
of Bible temperance, is condemned and rejected by the 
Apostle as a doctrine and commandment of men (Col. ii. 21). 
" God pours out His bounty for all, and vouchsafes His grace 
to each for guidance ; and to endeavor to evade the work 
which He has appointed for each man by refusing the bounty 
in order to save the trouble of seeking the grace, is an at- 
tempt which must ever end in the degradation of individual 
motives and in social demoralization, whatever present appar- 
ent effects may follow its first promulgation. One visible 
sign of this degradation, in its intellectual form, is the mis- 
erable attempt made by some of the advocates of this move- 
ment to show that the wine here [in the miracle at Cana] 
and in other places of Scripture is unfermented wine, not 
possessing the power of intoxication." x The substitution of 
something else for wine in the Lord's Supper, under the plea 
of removing temptation from the weak, destroys the typical 
significance of the cup of blessing as the emblem of joy, as 
an illustration of the manner in which Christ's blood was 
pressed out by His sacrificial agony, and as a fulfilment of 
the evangelical prophecy, " In this mountain shall the Lord 
of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of 
wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on 
the lees well refined" (Isa. xxv. 6). Whether this prophecy 
refers specifically to the Lord's Supper or not, it certainly 
applies to and includes this holy sacrament ; and no inge- 
nuity of interpretation can so torture " wine on the lees 
well refined," which God makes the symbol of all Gospel 
blessings, as to make it mean unfermented grape-juice. 
1 Alford's comment on Second Chapter of John. 



252 APPENDIX. 

D. 

Forms of Admission to Sealing Ordinances. 

Upon the whole subject of the conditions and rights of 
church-membership Dr. Charles Hodge has conferred a great 
and lasting benefit on all denominations of Christians, and es- 
pecially on Presbyterians. He has demonstrated that noth- 
ing should be made a term of communion which is not 
declared in Scripture to be a term of salvation; that all 
who make a credible profession of faith in Christ — i. e., a 
profession which may be believed — are entitled to be re- 
garded as members of the visible Church ; that the Church 
does not consist exclusively of communicants, but iucludes 
all who, having been baptized, have not forfeited their mem- 
bership by scandalous living nor by any act of Church dis- 
cipline ; that baptized infants are professing Christians and 
members of the visible Church in the same sense that their 
parents are ; and that we are bound to admit to the Lord's 
table all members of the visible Church who express an in- 
telligent desire to partake of it. The application of these 
simple principles would sweep away at once many of the 
bars by which that table is "fenced," and most of the cove- 
nants by which individual ministers and churches have sup- 
plemented God's covenant of grace and salvation. The 
enforcement of the adoption of the Confession of Faith as 
a condition of membership in the Presbyterian Church and 
of admission to the Holy Communion has no warrant in 
our Standards nor in the Word of God ; and the same may 
be said of most of the extemporized and mutilated confes- 
sions which individual ministers and churches have substi- 
tuted for it. Many ministers have felt this so profoundly 
that they have abolished the custom of a public confession 
on the part of baptized persons coming to the Lord's table. 
This, we think, is going to the other extreme. Such a con- 
fession is manifestly appropriate in the case of adults coming 



LECTURE VII. 253 

into the Church by baptism. It seems to be equally so in 
the case of those who have been baptized in infancy and come 
in years of discretion to ratify their baptism and claim their 
birthright privileges. In the latter case a public confession 
is simply an act of confirmation, according to the early prac- 
tice of all the Reformed churches. The Presbyterian Church 
greatly needs, and we trust will one day have, uniform and 
authoritative formularies for the administration of baptism 
and for the admission of professed believers to the Lord's 
Supper; so that all things may be done decently and in 
order, and the Church, in these solemn transactions, may 
teach a form of sound words rather than the rambling 
effusions of individual ministers. 

That the general instructions given in our Directory for 
Worship do not supply this need is evident from the fact 
that there is a constant issuing of new books of forms, some 
of which have received the quasi indorsement of the Church 
through its Board of Publication. Opposition to such forms 
is practically dead. 

E. 

Wliose Children are to be baptized I 

A sufficient guarantee for the Christian education of a 
child is the Divinely appointed and indispensable condition 
of its baptism. The Presbyterian Church, in common with 
most of the churches of the Reformation, has always insisted 
that parents, or those who actually stand in loco parentis — 
that is, those who really intend to bring up the child — are 
the only persons who ought to be accepted as its sureties in 
this solemn transaction. 

It seems shocking to us that one who has only a passing 
interest in the little one, who has no responsibility for its 
education, and does not expect to have a controlling influ- 
ence in the moulding of its character, — one who in many 
cases does not expect to see the child again after the cere- 



254 APPENDIX. 

mony, — should assume these solemn obligations and make 
these solemn promises in its behalf. No such practice pre- 
vailed in the early Christian Church. Bingham in his 
" Christian Antiquities " shows that up to the time of Au- 
gustine parents were, in all ordinary cases, sponsors for 
their own children. 

"The extraordinary cases in which they were presented 
by others were commonly such cases where parents could not 
or would not do that kind office for them ; as where slaves 
were presented for baptism by their masters, or children 
whose parents were dead were brought by the charity of 
any one who would show that mercy on them, or children 
exposed to death by their parents, which were sometimes 
taken up by the holy virgins of the Church, and by them 
presented for baptism. These are the only cases mentioned 
by Saint Augustine in which children seem to have had 
other sponsors and not their parents, — which makes it 
probable that in all ordinary cases parents were sureties for 
their own children." 1 

It being admitted that the indispensable condition of bap- 
tism is a sufficient guarantee for the Christian education of 
the child, it remains to consider what are the qualifications 
on the part of parents, natural or adopted, which entitle 
them to give such a guarantee. Whose children have a 
right to baptism 1 There is an ambiguity in this question 
which it is very important to clear up. It is exactly par- 
allel with the question, Who have a right to be recognized 
as members of the visible Church 1 This question may refer 
either to the abstract right in the sight of God, or to the 
concrete and prescriptive right in the sight of men. In 
God's sight none have a right to visible church-membership 
and to a participation in the sacraments but those who are 
regenerate and made members of the invisible Church. 
Ministers are to preach this doctrine. But from the na- 
ture of the case they cannot enforce it upon individuals, 
1 Bingham's Christian Antiquities, i. 552. 



LECTUKE VII. 255 

because they have not the gift of discerning spirits. They 
are bound to recognize as members of the visible Church and 
to admit to all its ordinances and privileges all those who 
make a credible profession of their faith in Christ, not upon 
the certainty, but upon the presumption that they are re- 
generate and members of the invisible Church. The respon- 
sibility for the truth or falsity of such a profession rests not 
upon the Church or the minister who accepts it, but upon 
the individual who makes it. The same is true of the chil- 
dren of professed believers and of the profession which they 
make representatively through their parents. They are 
members of the visible Church, and presumptively regener- 
ate upon the same grounds that their parents are. They 
are included in the covenant whose sacraments the minis- 
ter is to dispense. If the acceptance of the covenant is a 
mere outward form, without the inward reality, then the 
sacramental seal, whether applied to the parent or to the 
child, is merely an outward sign, without the inward and 
invisible grace, and the essential element being wanting, it 
is, in fact, no sacrament at all. But the minister cannot 
discriminate between the false and the true. He can only 
act upon the presumption in the case. The Westminster 
Confession and Catechisms answer the question whose chil- 
dren are to be baptized as definitely as the nature of the 
case will allow. The Confession (chap, xxviii. 4) declares 
that " not only those who do actually profess faith in and 
obedience to Christ, but also infants of one or both believing 
parents, are to be baptized." By believing parents is evi- 
dently meant those who actually profess to believe, as dis- 
tinguished from those who profess in and through their 
representatives or sponsors. The Shorter Catechism says 
(Question 95), " The infants of such as are members of the 
visible Church are to be baptized." And the Larger Cate- 
chism (Question 166) still further explains this position: 
"Infants descending from parents, either both or but one 
of them professing faith in Christ and obedience to Him, 



256 APPENDIX. 

are in that respect within the covenant and are to be bap- 
tized." Now this is in exact accordance with the re- 
quirements of the Abrahamic covenant in regard to the 
circumcision of children; and it throws upon the minister 
the responsibility of deciding in every case whether those 
who ask for the baptism of their children are members of 
the visible Church and make a credible profession of faith. 
It is easy to renounce this responsibility by baptizing all 
who are presented, asking no questions for conscience' sake. 
It is easy also to evade it by baptizing only the children 
of those who are communicant members of some particular 
church. But where is the warrant in Scripture for making 
church-membership and the profession of faith identical 
with coming to the Lord's table 1 ? 

After much study of this question I have come deliber- 
ately to the conclusion to baptize the children of all who 
have themselves been baptized, who have never repudiated 
their covenant obligations, and who at the time of the admin- 
istration of the ordinance are prepared to make a credible 
profession of their faith in and obedience to Christ. If any 
parents will deceitfully or carelessly make such a confession 
and assume such vows, the accountability is on them, not 
on us. The instances in which non-communicants will ask 
for the baptism of their children on these conditions are not 
many. But there are such cases in which the known char- 
acter of the applicants inspires far more confidence in their 
sincerity than we are able to feel towards many who have 
"joined the church." We dare not exclude their children 
from the one sacrament because they have timid or errone- 
ous views in regard to the other. Coming to the Lord's 
table and having our children baptized are both privileges 
of the covenant. It is not for us to say, nor can we find 
anything in the Word of God which lays down an invariable 
rule as to which of these privileges must be first embraced. 
The refusal in all cases to baptize the children of those who 
are not communicants can be justified only upon the as- 



LECTURE VII. 257 

sumption that membership in the visible Church is identical 
with coming to the Lord's table. This, we know, is the 
popular notion on the subject; but it is contrary to the doc- 
trine of all the Reformed Creeds and of the Scriptures, which 
agree in teaching that the children of professing Christians 
are born members of the visible Church according to Paul's 
declaration in 1 Cor. vii. 14 : "Else were your children un- 
clean, but now are they holy" — i. e., separated from the 
world and consecrated to God by virtue of the household 
covenant. 

Dr. Ashbel Green, in his lectures on the Shorter Cate- 
chism, admirably discusses this subject. We quote his 
words as an exposition and defence of our views : — 

" I have no belief in such a thing as a half-way covenant, 
nor am I prepared to say that the essential qualifications 
for a participation in both sacraments are not the same ; and 
I distinctly say that baptism, in my judgment, ought not to 
be administered to those of whom there is no reasonable 
ground to believe, after examination and inquiry, that the 
requisitions of duty in chap. vii. of our Directory for Wor- 
ship will be solemnly regarded and their performance con- 
scientiously endeavored. All this notwithstanding, I cannot 
make abstinence from the Lord's table the ground, in all 
cases, for precluding from the privilege of devoting their 
infant offspring to God in baptism, some who are desirous 
of doing it, although they cannot, for the present, view 
themselves as prepared to go to the table of the Lord." 1 

Our venerated teacher, Dr. Hodge, fully indorses these 
views : — 

"The sacraments, as all admit, are to be confined to mem- 
bers of the Church ; but the Church does not consist exclu- 
sively of communicants. It includes all those who, having 
been baptized, have not forfeited their membership by scan- 
dalous living or by an act of church discipline. All mem- 
bers of the Church are professors of religion. . . . Those, 
1 Green's Lectures, ii. 378. 
17 



258 APPENDIX. 

therefore, who having been themselves baptized and still 
professing their faith in the true religion, having competent 
knowledge and being free from scandal, ought not only to 
be permitted, but urged and enjoined, to present their chil- 
dren for baptism." 1 

1 Hodge's Theology, ii. 578. 



INDEX. 



Abraham, covenant with, the perpet- 
ual charter of the Church, 89-98 : 
everlasting, 90; all-inclusive, 91- 
92; a covenant of grace and salva- 
tion, 92-94; includes the church- 
membership of infants, 9-4-95. 

Act of Uniformity, enforced with re- 
lentless cruelty, 154. 

Alexander, on the Acts, quoted, 142- 
143 note. 

Alford, Dr., on the two-wine theory, 
251. 

Anabaptists, the, 76. 

Angels, the, of the seven churches of 
Asia, 143-144. 

Apostles, the, baptized households, 
101-104 ; not ordained in the tech- 
nical sense of the word, 117 ; never 
claimed the power of ordination, 
133; no Scriptural evidence that 
they claim the exclusive power of 
ordination, 145-146; frequency 
with which they observed the 
Lord's Supper, 207. 

Apostles' Creed, the, contains an ad- 
mirable and universally accepted 
summary of essential truth, 16-17. 

Apostolic Succession, doctrine of, 131 
et seq. 

Ascension gifts, 49. 

Assembly of the Redeemed, as seen 
by John in the Apocalypse, 10. 

Augsburg Confession, the, on the 
Sacraments, 172. 

Augustine, on infant baptism, 80. 



Banneeman, his " Church of Christ," 
quoted, 3 note; on the real pres- 
ence, 182 note. 

Baptism, no one mode of, enjoined by 



Scripture, 68, 69 ; identical with cir- 
cumcision, 96-98 ; why restricted to 
the children of believers. 108-110; 
the Christian equivalent of circum- 
cision, 193 ; the initiatory rite of the 
Christian Church, 211; a sign and 
seal of the covenant of grace, 212. 

Baptism and the Lord's Supper, the 
only two Sacraments instituted by 
Christ, 194. 

Barrow, Isaac, quoted, 19 note. 

Beecher, Dr. Edward, on "Mode and 
Subjects of Baptism," quoted, 206 
note. 

Bellarmine "On the Church," 
quoted, 55 note. 

Bingham, on ancient rites of baptism, 
254. 

Binnie, on the Church, quoted, 196 
note. 

Bishop and presbyter, synonymous 
terms, 135. 

Bishops, no exclusive right to ordain 
men to the Christian ministry, 144 
et seq. 

Blunt, "Annotated Prayer-Book, " 
quoted, 132. 

Bread and wine, essential to the ob- 
servance of the Lord's Supper, 209. 

Briggs, Dr., "Whither," quoted, 135 
note. 

Browne, Harold, Lectures on the 
Thirty-nine Articles, 165-166, 177 
note. 

Bruce, Dr., his "Kingdom of God," 
quoted, 31; on the Petros, 231 
note. 

Bruis, Peter de, leader and founder 
of the Waldenses, 76-77. 

Bushnell, Dr., on Christian Nurture, 
quoted, 217. 



260 



INDEX. 



Calvin. John, 36 and note ; his " In- 
stitutes," quoted, 16, 24-25 note; 
his doctrine of the Lord's Supper, 
176-178, 181 and note, 181 note, 
185 note ; on the Sacraments of the 
Old and the New Testament, 193 
note ; on Gospel preaching and the 
administering the Sacraments, 195- 
196 and note ; on the frequency of 
observing the Lord's Supper, 208 
note ; on the communion of saints, 
228. 

Candlish, Dr., his "Kingdom of 
God," quoted, 41; on the Sacra- 
ments, 200 note; his statement of 
the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's 
Supper, 239-240. 

Catechism, Fisher's, quoted, 211. 

Charles II., his solemn promises 
broken, 154. 

Children, of believers, how to be re- 
garded and treated, 217-222; whose 
are to be baptized, 253-258. 

Chiliastic theory of the Church and 
kingdom, 44-47. 

Christ, cosmic relations of, as indi- 
cated by the Scriptures, 11-12 ; his 
sacrifice the centre, though not the 
circumference, of Christianity, 29; 
His kingship underlies both His 
prophetic and priestly office, 29-30 ; 
His humiliation on earth did not 
annul His authority, 30; visible 
Church of, in what it consists, 31; 
what He established and pro- 
claimed, 31; incarnation of, in its 
relation to infancy, 104-107; His 
body and blood, how received in 
the Lord's Supper, 188-191. 

Christendom, unity of, how much to 
be desired, 65-66 ; by what means 
to be promoted, 66-73. 

Christians, real and nominal, 2. 

Chrysostom, on baptism, 80. 

Church, derivation of the word, 1, 2; 
divine idea of, 1, 2; the true, a 
mixed society, 2 ; of whom it con- 
sists, 2, 3, 5 ; as spoken of in Scrip- 
ture, 3 ; definition difficult, 3 ; for 
best analysis of complex idea of, 
see twenty-fifth chapter of West- 
minster Confession, 3; knits indi- 



viduals into one body, 3; a living 
organism, 4; branches of, 4; Christ 
likens it to the kingdom of heaven, 
4; consists of "particular churches," 
4; recognized in Scripture, 4; " veg- 
etable theory," 4-5; the whole 
body of the redeemed, 6 ; as a di- 
vine institution in the world, 7; in 
the Scripture use of the name, 
reaches far beyond any earthly and 
visible organization, 7 ; not an ag- 
gregation but a body, or society, 
of believers, 8 ; Saint Paul's teach- 
ing concerning, 14-15 ; first refer- 
ence to, in the New Testament, 18 ; 
inclusive character of, as stated by 
the Westminster Confession, 24-26 ; 
a particular, four things essential 
to its organization and life, 55; is 
it one in fact, as in theory, 57; 
perpetuity and identity of, as a di- 
vine institution in the world, 85- 
89; perpetual charter of, the cov- 
enant with Abraham, 89-98. 

Church and State, true relation be- 
tween, 34 et seq. ; why attempts to 
unify, have failed, 38; demonstra- 
tion by America that each can 
stand alone, 160. 

Church government, no particular 
form of, essential to the existence 
and unitv of the visible church, 
51-52. 

Church, Holy Catholic, invisible, 3, 
4,9. 

Church, the invisible, Dr. Goulburn's 
remarks upon, 7-8 ; the elect people 
of God, 8 ; entrance into, is with 
Christ, 27. 

Church of Christ, fully organized and 
equipped, 18-19 ; has the world 
for its empire, and all nations for 
its subjects, 26; and Kingdom of 
Christ, mutual relations discussed, 
33 et seq. ; analogy between it and 
the human body, 50-51. 

Church of England, isolation of, by 
its own act, 154. 

Church of God, Saint Paul's teaching 
concerning, 14-15 ; synonymous 
with kingdom of God, 18. 

Church of Rome, the, dream of, 57; 



INDEX. 



261 



not the Catholic church, 58 ; largely 
responsible for existing divisions 
of Christendom, 58; its doctrine 
of the Lord's Supper, 164-168; 
authorizes lay baptism, 204. 

Church, visible, 3, 4; Congregational 
or Independent theory of, 5 note; 
and invisible, distinction between, 
5, 13 ; called the Body of Christ, 6 ; 
not the limit of God's elect, 8 ; as 
much a true church as the invisi- 
ble, 17 ; first announcement of, 
17-18 ; of whom it consists, 17, 24 ; 
foundation of, prepared by Jesus, 
18 ; Peter most successful pro- 
moter of, 20 ; referred to by Paul 
as "the Jerusalem which is above," 
21-22; separated from all forms of 
human government, 25; identical 
with the kingdom of our Lord Je- 
sus Christ, 26 ; its unity considered, 
48 et seq.; what constitutes its 
unity, 50. 

Circumcision, identical with baptism, 
96-98 ; the seal of righteousness 
by faith, 193. 

Citizenship, what it implies, 48. 

Communion of Saints, the, 228-229. 

Constantine, Emperor, 35. 

Conversion, not necessarily the test 
of piety or the evidence of Christian 
character, 219; wrong ideas con- 
cerning, 248. 

Co-operation, a means of promoting 
church unity, 70-71. 

Covenant, Solemn League and, 37. 

Creed, a, no part of the divine con- 
stitution of the visible church, 51. 

Cunningham, " Reformers and The- 
ology of the Reformation," quoted, 
162 note ; 177 note. 

Cunningham, Principal, on infant 
baptism, 216-217 note. 

Cunningham, Dr., on the Sacraments, 
243-244. 

Cvprian, on the baptism of infants, 
"79-80. 



Delitzsch. on the Pentateuch, 

quoted, 91 note. 
Denominationalism, an evil to be de- 



plored, 62; Saint Paul condemns, 
62; local example of, 63; its ef- 
fect upon the Sacraments, 64; its 
dire effect upon churches and min- 
isters, 65. 
Didache, the, opinions concerning, 
232-236. 



"Ecce Homo," quoted, 194 note. 
Ecclesia, of the New Testament, 1, 

2, 13, 18; synonymous with Kahal 

of the Old, 85. 
Edwards, Jonathan, "Qualifications 

for Full Communion Work," 

quoted, 9-10. 
Election to the pastoral office by the 

people of a particular church no 

part of ordination to the Christian 

ministry, 123-125. 
England and Scotland, churches of, 

37. 
Episcopal Church, its attitude toward 

non-episcopal ordination, 155-161 ; 

one of the bulwarks of genuine 

Protestantism, 161; its doctrine of 

ordination, 127 et seq. 



Faith, unity of, an attribute of the 
true Church, 15; does not depend 
upon exact agreement in doctrine, 
but upon an essential minimum 
of truth, 15-16. 

Fasting, no part of the ceremony of 
ordination, 121-122. 

Fathers, the Church, on infant bap- 
tism, 81; contradictory teachings 
of, as to the Lord's Supper, etc., 
165. 

Federation, a means of promoting 
Church unity, 71-73. 

First-born, the general assembly and 
Church of, existing only in the city 
of the living God, the heavenly 
Jerusalem, 7. 

Fisher's " Christian Church," quoted, 
36 note. 



Gardiner, Bishop, on the Catholic 
teaching of transubstantiation, 166. 



262 



INDEX. 



Gieseler, " Ecclesiastical History," 
quoted, 164 note. 

Gore, " Church and Ministry," 
quoted, 44 note, 130. 

Gossip, an ecclesiastical term, 64 
note. 

Goulburn, Dr., his idea of the invisi- 
ble Church criticised, 7-8 ; his 
'•Holy Catholic Church" quoted, 
7-8, 126 note ; on the Lord's Sup- 
per, 200 note. 

Green, Dr. Ashbel, on subjects of 
baptism, 257. 



Haddon, " Apostolic Succession," 
quoted, 116, 135-136, 144 note, 

Hall, Bishop, on the divine right of 
Episcopacy, 152. 

Hatch, JBampton Lectures quoted, 
151. 

Hodge, A. A., "Outlines of Theolo- 
gy," quoted, 9; "Popular Lec- 
tures," quoted, 10-11. 

Hodge, Charles, quoted, 10; "On 
Denominationalism," 60-61 ; his 
"Church Polity," quoted, 52, 68 
note, 115-116. 

Hodge, Dr., "Commentary on Ro- 
mans," quoted, 88-89; on the 
Lord's Supper, quoted, 163 note, 
164 note ; on the efficacy of the 
Sacraments, 199 note; on the use 
of wine in the observance of the 
Lord's Supper, 209-210 ; on the 
status of baptized children, 216 
note ; on the salvation of infants, 
223-224; his views of whom the 
Church consists, 257-258. 

Holiness, an attribute of all true be- 
lievers, 14; qualification of this 
statement, 14-15. 

Holy Catholic Church, the, consists 
of the whole body of professed be- 
lievers on earth, 15. 

Hooker, " Ecclesiastical Polity," 
quoted, 16 note, 124 note, 137-138; 
on the episcopal power of the 
Apostles, quoted, 146 note. 

Human race, the great majority of, 
will be saved through Christ, 10. 



Immersion, regarded as the only 
mode of baptism, discussed, 205- 
207. 

Incarnation of the Son of God, its 
bearing upon the Sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper, 178-181. 

Infant baptism, a practice as early as 
third century, 78; alleged silence 
of Scripture in regard to, 82-85; 
argument for, put into a nutshell, 
97-98; the profit accruing from, 
110-114; obligations of parents in 
consequence of, 111; the one es- 
sential condition of, 214; subjects 
of, to be regarded as regenerate 
until the contrary is made to ap- 
pear, 215 and note. 

Infants, church membership of, 74 et 
seg.; baptism of, 74 et seq. ; the 
unbaptized, are they saved, 75; 
history of the doctrine of the 
church membership and baptism 
of, 75 et seq. ; salvation of, most 
Christians believe in, 83-84, 223- 
227 ; silence of Scripture in regard 
to, 84. 

Irenaeus, on the nature and scope of 
Christ's redemption, 105. 



Jerome, on the origin of Episcopacy, 
quoted, 144. 

Jesus of Nazareth, his claim to be 
the Messiah, 27-28. 

John the Baptist, first to announce 
the establishment of the visible 
Church, 17-18. 

Judaism and Christianity, not differ- 
ent, much less hostile, religions, 85. 



Kahal, the, of the Old Testament, 
1, 2 ; synonymous with the Eccle- 
sia of the New, 85. 

Kingdom of Christ, not the universal 
sovereignty of God, 30; synony- 
mous with the Church visible and 
invisible, 32-33 ; yet there is a dif- 
ference between them, 33-34; what 
the term "kingdom" indicates, 
33-34; as applied to the Church, 
43. 



INDEX. 



263 



KAijroi, 2, 13. 
Kvpiov oi/cos, 1. 

Lambeth Conference, quoted, 131 
note. 

Lang, Marshall, on the Last Supper, 
quoted, 189 note. 

Laud, Archbishop, his attempt to en- 
force exclusive episcopal ordina- 
tion, 153. 

Lay baptism, authorized by Church 
of Rome, 204; defended by some 
Episcopal writers, 204. 

Laying on of hands, the, an essential 
element of ordination, 121. 

Lightfoot, Bishop, quoted, 135 note, 
137 note ; on the Christian min- 
istry, quoted, 147 note ; on " bish- 
op " and " presbyter," quoted, 151 
note ; on circumcision and baptism 
of infants, quoted, 101 note. 

Litton, Dr., "Church of Christ," 
quoted, 5 note. 

Lord's Supper, the, silence of Scrip- 
ture on the admissibility of women 
to, 83 ; four theories of, 163 et 
seq. ; points in which these the- 
ories agree and differ, 163-164 ; 
Romish doctrine of, 164-168; Lu- 
theran doctrine of, 170-173 ; Zwing- 
lian doctrine of, 173-176; Calvin- 
istic, or Reformed, doctrine of, 176- 
177; what the believing and the 
unbelieving communicant receives 
in, 185-188 ; is the Christian pass- 
over, 193; no specific instruction 
from Christ as to the mode of its 
administration, 207; frequency of 
its observance in apostolic times, 
207 ; kneeling in the reception of, 
208 ; the scope of Christian liberty 
in regard to, 208; the true spirit 
of, to be strenuously preserved, 
210-211; Lutheran doctrine of, 
239-241 ; Zwingle's doctrine of, 
241-243 ; is it a converting or- 
dinance, 247-249. 

Luther, Martin, his doctrine of the 
Lord's Supper, 170-173. 

Marriage, a divine institution, 82; 
no form of ceremony of, prescribed 



by Scripture, 83 ; the divinely ap- 
pointed means for propagating the 
Church, 113. 

Mason, quoted, 49, 50; on the Church 
of God, quoted, 86 note. 

Mercy, gates of, not to be shut by 
human authority, 11. 

Millenarian theory of the Church and 
kingdom, 44-47. 

Miller, on infant baptism, quoted, 
81-82 note. 

Ministry, Christian, all the great 
Protestant denominations agree is 
of divine appointment, and essen- 
tial to the existence of the visible 
Church, 115 ; ordination the sym- 
bol and seal of, 115; divine call 
to, how given, 116; not to be en- 
tered upon save by lawful ordina- 
tion, 120 and note. 

Mitchell, on the Westminster Con- 
fession, quoted, 177 note. 

Montanists, the, 77. 

Morality, an essential part of reli- 
gion, 42. 

Mount Sinai, covenant made at, 
superseded by that with Abra- 
ham, 90. 



Old Testament econom}', the, full 
of natural symbolism, 192. 

Ordinances, sealing, forms of ad- 
mission to, 252-253. 

Ordination to the ministr}', no one 
mode of. enjoined by Scripture, 
68, 69; what it is, 115-120; Scrip- 
tural forms of administering, 115; 
who are entitled to administer it, 
115, 125 et seq. ; appropriate only 
to those whose call to the ministry 
is unattended by any miraculous 
sign, 117; the Romish doctrine of, 
118; not a Sacrament, but an ef 
fectual means of preparation for 
the work of the ministry, 118 ; 
case of Timothy, 119 ; Dr. Smythe 
on, 118 note ; the only lawful path 
to the ministry, 120 and note ; the 
true outward form of, 121-125. 

Origen, on the baptism of infants, 
79, 81. 



264 



INDEX. 



Owen, John, on infant baptism, 
quoted, 107 note ; " Plea for Scrip- 
ture Ordination, 1 ' 137 note; on the 
Lord's Supper, quoted, 191. 

Palmek, " On the Church," quoted, 
56 note. 

Parables, our Lord's, outline the his- 
tory of His kingdom, 32. 

Parental office, religious importance 
of, 113-114. 

Passover, the, the seal of righteous- 
ness by faith, 193. 

Paul, Saint, his teaching concerning 
the Church, 14-15; nature of his 
ordination to the apostleship, 122- 
123. 

Pelagius, on infant baptism, 80. 

Petros, the rock-foundation of the 
Church, discussed, 229-232. 

Presbyter, the word interchangeable 
with "bishop" in apostolic times, 
150-151. 

Presbyter and Bishop, synonymous 
terms, 135. 

Presbyterian Church, the, its doc- 
trine of ordination, 127 et seq. ; its 
idea of valid and irregular ordina- 
tion, 157-158 ; undergoing changes, 
161; in the United States, 38. 

Presbyterian Directory for Worship, 
quoted, 220. 

Presbyterian doctrine of the form of 
Church government, 53 note. 

Presbytery, discussion as to the 
meaning of, 149-151. 

Public profession of faith, some 
forms of, stated and criticised, 
220-222. 

Puritan dream, the, of a visible 
Church on earth, 58. 

Puritan intolerance, 59-60. 

Quakers, the, incompleteness of 
their profession, 56. 

Real presence, doctrine of the, dis- 
cussed, 181-185. 

Recognition, a means of promoting 
church unity, 67-70. 



Redeemed, the, the Apocalyptic 
vision of, 10. 

Redeeming grace, not to be limited 
by man, 106-107. 

Reformers, the, agreement among, 
as to the doctrines of grace, 168; 
bitter strife among, as to the Sac- 
raments, 169-170. 

Reimensnyder, Dr. J. B. on the Di- 
dache, 232-234. 



Sacraments, new, the Church no 
right to institute, 74; doctrine 
of, different to-day from what it 
was in the creeds of the Reforma- 
tion, 162-163 ; drift in the direction 
of a vague formalism, 162; great 
need of a sacramental revival 
among all denominations, 163: all 
Protestants hold that there are two, 
not seven, 194; baptism and the 
Lord's Supper the only two, insti- 
tuted by Christ, 194; the insignia 
of Christ's Church and Kingdom 
in the world, 194; the preaching 
of the word inseparable from the 
observance of, 195; obligatory on 
all who profess the true religion, 
197; effectual means of grace and 
salvation, 199 ; exhibitions and 
conveyances of saving truth, 200; 
who were authorized to administer 
them, 202-205; their administra- 
tion the prerogative of ordained 
ministers, 203-204; inconsistency 
of the Romish and Episcopal 
churches on this point, 204-205; 
mode of their administration, 205- 
211 ; conditions of admission to, 
211; necessity, efficacy, and sig- 
nificance of, discussed, 243-247. 

Sacramentum, the Latin translation 
of the Greek ju.vcm7p1.01>, 193. 

Salvation, ordinary possibility of, not 
commensurate with God's power, 9; 
of every human soul whom it is 
possible for God to save, 9 ; of all 
dying infants, not an abstract the- 
ory, 11 ; not ceremonial or mechan- 
ical, but by grace, 113. 

Saved, the, the number of, greater 



INDEX. 



265 



than that of professing Christians, 
8; not few, 10. 

Saviour, the, his great commission, 
98-101. 

Schaff, "Creeds of Christendom," 
quoted, 76 note ; " Creed Revision," 
quoted, 37 note; "History of the 
Christian Church," quoted, 25 note; 
on the Lord's Supper, 172 note, 
177 note. 

Schism, among presbyters, the " only 
remedy" for, 139-140; Paul's 
treatment of, 110-143. 

Scriptures, the, diffuseness and va- 
riety of, 1; they recognize the 
Church as both invisible and visi- 
ble, 17. 

Sermon on the Mount, 29. 

Smythe, Dr., " Presbytery and Prel- 
acy," quoted, 118 note. 

Stanley, Dean, "Christian Institu- 
tions," quoted, 175-176. 

State, a Christian, 34-35; three at- 
tempts to realize, 35 et seq.; is it 
realizable, 39. 



Tertuleian, 77; denounces mar- 
riage, 77; author of the earliest 
extant treatise on baptism, 78; ad- 
vises against baptism of infants, 
78-79. 

Testament, Old and New, organic 
and vital connection between, 
85-87. 

Thirty-nine Articles, their definition 
of the visible Church, 56 note ; on 
transubstantiation, 166; on the ef- 
fect of receiving the Sacraments, 
186 note. 

Timothy, nature of his call to the 
ministry, 119; ordination of, 148- 
149 ; whether as bishop or presby- 
ter, 148 and note. 

Total depravity, doctrine of, stated 
with qualification, 215. 

Transubstantiation, doctrine of, de- 
fined and confuted, 166-168; some 
Protestant arguments against it 
considered, 236-239. 



Trent, Council of, its decree of tran- 
substantiation, 166, 167 note, 168 
note. 



Van Dyke, Dr. Henry, on the salva- 
tion of infants, 224-227. 



Waldenses, the, 76-77. 

Walker, his "Scottish Theology and 

Theologians," quoted, 5 note, 39. 
Watei-, essential in the administration 
of baptism, 209. 

Westminster Assembly, its theory of 
a Christian State, 36-37. 

Westminster Confession, quoted, 3, 
24, 26 ; imposed upon England by 
Act of Parliament, 37 ; on the visi- 
ble Church, 56 note; on the Sacra- 
ments of the Old and the New Tes- 
tament, 193 note ; on the efficacy 
of baptism, 212 note; on whose 
children are to be baptized, 255. 

Wilberforce, on the Eucharist, 168 
note. 

Wine, essential to the observance of 
the Lord's Supper, 209-210; the 
two kinds spoken of in the New 
Testament, 249-251. 

Wiseman, Cardinal, on the Eucha- 
rist, 167 note. 

Witherow, Dr., "Form of the Chris- 
tian Temple," quoted, 20 note, 
130 note. 

Wordsworth, Bishop, on Apostolic 
Succession, quoted, 159 note. 

Worship, no prescribed and uniform 
mode of, essential to the organiza- 
tion and unity of the visible Church, 
53-54; must have rights and cere- 
monies, 192; implies not the ab- 
sence of form, but its subordination 
to the Spirit, 192. 



Zwingle, his doctrine of the Lord's 
Supper, 173-176; his views as to 
the Lord's Supper, 241-243. 

Zwinglianism, essentiallv rationalis- 
tic, 174. 



